Life assessment of high temperature components - current concerns and research directions
- Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA (United States)
During the last decade, construction of new fossil power plants has come to a virtual halt in the United States. The main factors responsible for this situation are: (1) industry perception of the existence of sufficient reserve margins, (2) uncertainty in forecasting load growth, (3) cost of borrowing for new plant construction, (4) siting and licensing problems for new plants, and (5) the applicability of more stringent environmental standards for new plants. Unfortunately by the year 2000, it is estimated that nearly 20% of all the fossil units will be more than 40 years old, and almost 44% will be more than 30 years old. A critical component of EPRI`s efforts in formulating life extension strategies for fossil power plants is the development of techniques to assess the current condition of high-temperature components. These techniques are necessary not only for assessment of the remaining life, but also for avoiding catastrophic failures and forced outages, for setting up inspection intervals and for optimizing the operating procedures. The components that are being addressed at present are boiler pressure parts, steam pipes and steam turbine rotors. This paper will provide a brief overview of current concerns and areas of research where significant progress has been made to address these concerns. Specific topics that have been chosen include seam welded hot reheat piping problem, ligament cracking and the BLESS Code for boiler headers, creep cavitation, creep-fatigue crack growth methodology, tube life assessment methodology for tubes and rotor FATT prediction methods.
- OSTI ID:
- 175117
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950686-; TRN: 95:006111-0026
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Joint applied mechanics and materials summer meeting, Los Angeles, CA (United States), 28-30 Jun 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of AMD - MD `95: Summer conference; PB: 520 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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