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US 5,333,161 AGranted
Intergranular stress corrosion cracking mitigation by rapid quench melting
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsRobert A. Thompson, Marshall G. Jones
Life of this patent
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Abstract
This invention relates to a method to selectively mitigate intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) by rapid quench melting through the use of a pulsed laser. Such methods of the type, generally, mitigate reactor pipe cracking by rapidly melting the sensitized material to redissolve chromium carbide and then rapidly cooling the sensitized material such that corrosion cracking can be avoided.
Claims5
A method for preventing intergranular stress corrosion cracking in a substrate employing an apparatus comprising a pulsed laser, comprising the steps of:
- holding said substrate;
- surface treating a predetermined portion of said substrate with a pulsed laser beam from said pulsed laser to substantially prevent the formation of intergranular stress corrosion cracking wherein said step of operating said pulsed laser is further comprised of the step of:
- operating said laser at approximately 50 joules/pulse:
- and
- pulsing said laser for a pulse time of approximately 10 ms;
- and
- surface treating said predetermined portion of said substrate for approximately 150 ms;
- and
- recasting said predetermined portion of said substrate for approximately 30 ms such that substantially all carbides located within said substrate are redissolved into the recast material and cannot be easily dissolved out of the recast material thereby substantially preventing stress corrosion cracking
- repeating, if necessary, said surface treatment step until a predetermined amount of said substrate has been surface treated.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.