ABSTRACT

Process equipment which employs a corrosion resistant alloy (CRA) layer cladded to steel is common in refineries, petrochemical plants and other plants processing highly corrosive media. There are two regularly employed methods for welding attachments and internals to clad process vessels. One is to remove the CRA cladding for welding the attachment to the steel base metal which requires dissimilar welds and restoring CRA by weld overlay. The other eliminates the step of removing the cladding, simplifying the attachment process by direct welding of the internals onto the clad layer. NobelClad has run a 15 year Research & Development program which has concluded that the explosion welding interface manufactured by DetaClad™ has the features to support any kind of stress generated by an internal directly welded on the CRA. In order to provide design engineers with complete data on DetaClad™ as a cost-efficient option for heavy loaded attachment, a shear test program was conducted on DetaClad™ explosion welded interfaces beneath fillet welds of various sizes. Together with the previous data sets, these shear strength data will reduce any concerns or uncertainty about directly welding on DetaClad™ explosion bonded products.