Failure of oil-fired boiler waterwall tubes due to intergranular corrosion-fatigue process: A case study

Conference · Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:376091

Lopez-Lopez, D; Wong-Moreno, A ^[1]; Martinez, L ^[2]

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1. Inst. de Investigaciones Electricas, Cuernavaca (Mexico)
2. U.A. Campeche (Mexico). Programa de Corrosion del Golfo de Mexico

Internal corrosion and circumferential cracking due to a corrosion fatigue process are some of the most common failure causes of waterwall boiler tubes. The case study reported in this paper considers the failure of waterwall tubes of a small subcritical refinery boiler due to a combination of both processes. Circumferential cracking is reported in supercritical boilers with the characteristic feature of transgranular cracks. Intergranular corrosion fatigue cracks were present as a result of high temperature, which resulted from the presence of internal corrosion and formation of heavy deposits. While internal corrosion played a key role in the failure mechanism, the root cause of the failure is considered to be related to the generation of reducing atmospheres and high thermal flux due to flame impingement.

• OSTI ID: 376091
• Report Number(s): CONF-960389--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
42 ENGINEERING
BOILERS
CARBON
CARBON STEELS
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
COMBUSTION
CORROSION
CRACK PROPAGATION
CRACKS
DEPOSITS
ELECTRON MICROPROBE ANALYSIS
FAILURES
FATIGUE
FUEL OILS
HEAT FLUX
IRON OXIDES
METALLOGRAPHY
PH VALUE
PHOSPHATES
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
SILICATES
SULFUR
THERMAL STRESSES
TUBES