Zhang Dongdong receives the Henry Granjon Award at the 79th Annual Assembly and International Conference on Welding and Joining.

Zhang Dongdong, a PhD student from the School of Power and Mechanical Engineering at Wuhan University, received the Henry Granjon Award at the 79th Annual Assembly and International Conference on Welding and Joining (IIW) held from July 12 to 17 in Salzburg, Austria.

The Henry Granjon Award, established in 1992, recognizes outstanding contributions by young scholars in four categories: Joining and Fabrication Technology, Materials Behavior and Weldability, Design and Structural Integrity, and Human-related Studies.

Zhang's award-winning research addresses the challenge of high-performance, low-alloy heat-resistant steels that are prone to reheat cracking, preventing their use in high-temperature, pressure-bearing components in power plants.

He revealed the mechanism of "grain boundary precipitation weakening inducing reheat cracking" and proposed an approach to control carbon and boron content in the steel to suppress grain boundary precipitation.

Pilot tests showed that pipes made from the adjusted low-alloy heat-resistant steel for ultra-supercritical boiler manifolds were free of reheat cracks, improving intrinsic crack resistance without compromising high-temperature strength.

IIW, founded in 1948, boasts 63 member organizations from 53 countries, and the 79th IIW Annual Assembly attracted nearly 1,000 participants. The Chinese delegation, comprising over 120 experts and scholars, represented more than 30 institutions, including Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Harbin Institute of Technology.