Life assessment of boiler pressure parts. Volume 1, Executive summary: Final report
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
This project was initiated to satisfy the need within the power industry to assess the remaining life of components which operate for extensive periods at elevated temperatures in fossil-fired units. The objective of the project was to develop and validate an integrated methodology for the assessment of the remaining life of boiler pressure parts. The specific boiler parts to be covered were superheater and reheater tubes, superheater and reheater headers, and piping components -- all components operating at elevated temperature where creep is a consideration. For heavy section pressure retaining components (headers and pipes) in elevated temperature service, the life limiting damage mechanisms are generally associated with crack initiation and propagation involving both creep and fatigue. The life assessment methodology developed for these components has been incorporated into the computer code BLESS (Boiler Life Estimation and Simulation System). The dominant long-term failure mode for superheater and reheater tubes is creep-rupture. This phenomenon has been studied extensively and the means of measuring the extent of such damage to these tubes has been quantified by application of the techniques in the field, at two host utilities, and in the laboratory. Results include validation of oxide growth models, evaluation of the use of ultrasonic methods for measuring oxide and tube wall thickness, newly-developed creep-rupture life and creep strain rate models, optimal stress formulas for use in damage assessment and remaining life calculations, and an integrated application of inspection and calculational methods using simplified probabilistic techniques for component-wide evaluations.
- Research Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States); General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States); Babcock and Wilcox Co., New Orleans, LA (United States); Failure Analysis Associates, Inc., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Georgia Inst. of Tech., Atlanta, GA (United States); Westinghouse Research and Development Center, Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 10131998
- Report Number(s):
- EPRI-TR-103377-V1; ON: UN94007941
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Nov 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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