BACKGROUND

The Norwegian umbilical industry, including umbilical manufacturers, designers and endusers, have expressed a demand for guidelines that supplement the currently most frequently
applied standard for umbilicals, ISO 13628-5. Although this !SO-standard has good
acceptance in the industry, and is generally considered to be useful, some specific topics are
not fully covered by this standard.
In close cooperation with the industry, Det Norske Veritas (DNV) has identified several of
these issues, and DNV is planning to issue a new Recommended Practice (RP) for umbilicals.
TIUs new DNV RP shall be compliment to the ISO 13628-5, and will cover only the issues
that are not fully covered by the ISO standard.
Examples of topics that shall be treated in the planned DNV RP are:
I. General aspects: safety philosophy and reliability of the entire sub-sea system.
2. Aspects related to design: Global analysis I VlV (Vonex Induced Vibrations) damping,
damping and free spans, maximum bending radius, maximum handling tension,
interactions, marine growth, cross sectional analysis and joints.
3. Aspects related to metallic tubes: wall thickness, maximum acceptable accumulated strain,
plastic deformation, corrosion testing, non-destructive testing, acceptance criteria for
welding, link between design criteria and material requirements.
4 . Aspects related to Installation/Operation: repair and field joints.

This paper treats one of the identified aspects related to welding metallic tubes, namely
acceptance criteria for intermetallic phase.s. It also illustrates how the results from an on-going
joint industry project may be implemented in the planned RP.

INTRODUCTION
Due to their high mechanical strength and good corrosion resistance, duplex stainless steels
have found wide applications for metallic tubing in umbilicals. However, precipitation of
iniermetallic phases, such as <1 -phase and x -phase, has bee.n shown to have detrimental effect
on the impact toughness and corrosion resistance of these steels. The precipitation of
intermetallic phases often represents a problem during manufacturing and welding of duplel!.
steels. Excessive exposure of duplex stainless steels to 10oc to 955C results in the
formation of detrimental intennctallic phases.
A study performed by The Welding Institute (TWI) has concluded that welding procedure
qualifications requiring maximum intcrrnctallic content of approximately I % should be
regarded with caution and that, in cases where inti:rrnetallic phases are present, it is preferable
to measure the material properties of practical concem directly by means of mechanical
testing /21. Another study performed by Marathon Oil UK Limited has concluded that s igma
levels up to 2.5 %can be tolerated safely in some cases 131. Studies performed by AB Sandvik
Materials Technology indicate that neither the impact toughness nor the pining corrosion
resistance arc affected by 0.2% sigma-phase in the microstructure, and that at 0.6% the impact
toughness will be affected but not the pitting corrosion resistance 151 and /6/. A common
requirement often made to suppliers of duplex stainless steel components is that the
microstructure shall not contain more than 0.05% inrerrnetallic phases.

DNV, in co-ope.ration with Nexans Norway, has previously developed a method based on
electron microscopy and digital image analysis to measure the content of intennetallic phases.
Comparison to results from mechanical testing and corrosion testing showed that this method
was reliable and accurate even when measuring small amounts of intennetallic phases (less
than 0.5%). The results from this project were presented at the 6do World Duplex Conference
in Venice, Italy, 2000 Ill. This previous work showed that the impact toughness and corrosion
resistance of the examined super-duplex material decreases rapidly with increasing content of
inlennetallic phases, but that the standard NORSOK 141 requirements to these two properties
were met at a measured content of I.7 %. The applied method was, however, not suitable for
production testing since it is time-j)onsuming and relies on the application of advanced and
expensive equipment.
The Jack of an effective and reliable method to quantify the content of interrnetallic phases in
the microstructure of duplex steels, and the large variations of the different recommendations
given on this subject, calls for new and simpler ways to document adequate weld properties.
DNV has now launched a new Joint Industry Project (JIP) that represents a new approach to
this problem. Participants in this JIP are Nexans Norway, Aker Kva:mer Oiltield Products and
AB Sandvik Materials Technology.
The aim of the current work is to develop simpler and more efficient test methods to verify
the welds' fitness for service in umbilicals. This represents a new approach since focus is
drawn away from examination of the microstructure towards direct testing of the relevant
weld properties. Existing standardised mechanical testing is in many cases not relevant to
umbilical steel tubes, due to the small dimensions often held by such tubes. The project
therefore aims to establish new test methods that are specifically designed for the umbilical
application.
The basis for the development of new test-methods for duJ!Iex weldments is a consideration of
the most critical loads experienced by metallic umbilical tubing during manufacture,
installation and operation. The test methods will be designed to document adequate resistance
towards the critical loads independent of the material microstructure. This is in line with the
Load and Resistance Factor Design format applied in the DNV standard for submarine
pipeline systems, DNV OS-FlO!.