Influence of crystallographic texture on susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking mechanism of API 5L X52 steel for sour service

This work studies the relationship between the early stage of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) mechanism and the crystallographic texture of API 5L X52 steel for sour service in a near-neutral pH solution. Experimental evidence of the SCC initiation of X52 steel for sour service was obtained using SEM and EBSD techniques. The results show that the crack initiation mechanism behaves like a synergistic combination of chemical attack and stress concentration at pits, being the last one the driving force to crack transition. In addition, it was found from both X-ray macrotexture and EBSD microtexture measurements that the cracks initiation process depends strongly on the material's texture characteristics and the presence of the texture fiber {0 0 1}//ND in X52 steel for sour service can increase its susceptibility to SCC. In a quantitative manner, the influence of the crystallographic texture in the SCC mechanism was explained through the relationship between the initiation of SCC cracks and the predictions of the anisotropy of Young's modulus using EBSD measurements.