A Methodology for Screening Candidate

Dissimilar Metal Welds for Repair or Replacement

Thomas Sherlock
Laney Bisbee

Structural Integrity Associates, Inc.

Alex Bonnington

Potomac Electric Power Company

Abstract

Dissimilar Metal Welds are required in high temperature sections of boiler reheater and
superheater tubing to join low alloy steel tubing to the finishing stainless tubing. The
intrinsic difference in the coefficients of expansion cause high stresses to develop at the
relatively weak ferritic/weld interface. The power generation industry began to
experience failures of type 309 stainless steel welds in the early 1980’s and has recently
begun to experience nickel-based weld failures on tubes with 150,000 or greater
operating hours.

For utilities who have or wish to institute a program of periodic inspection and a DMW
repair/replacement maintenance strategy, one of the difficulties has been reliable NDE.
Radiographic techniques have shown to be of some benefit, but the cost and lost
maintenance time due to safety concerns makes it less than ideal. Replication and
electrical resistance techniques also have drawbacks from the standpoint of accuracy. In
1996, SI developed an ultrasonic scanning technique for DMWs. In 1998, the DMWs at
the Morgantown Station of PEPCO were examined using this technique and reasonably
good correlation was found between UT and destructive metallographic techniques.

This paper outlines the application of the focused scanning technique used to quantify the
damage in DMWs, the means for selecting damaged DMWs for correlation with the
technique and the manner in which this information is incorporated into a reliability-
centered maintenance strategy for improving boiler availability.

Introduction

In the early 1980’s, EPRI sponsored workshops to deal with the problem of excessive
DMW failures in power boilers (1). The main culprit was the use of a 309 type filler
material, which has the greater difference in coefficient of thermal expansion vis-à-vis
low alloy steel when compared to nickel-based filler materials. Utilities embarked on
programs of inspecting and repairing/replacing damaged welds before they would fail
and cause excessive consequential damage to the boiler tubing and significant losses in
unit availability. A computer code, PODIS, was developed by EPRI for the purpose of
predicting the rate of damage accumulation in DMWs as a function of tube operating
temperature, type of weld, degree of bending stress and number of unit cycles. Some
double wall radiographic techniques were developed which were useful in detecting
DMW damage, but the main drawback was the cost per radiograph and the exclusion of
personnel from the boiler in the vicinity of the radiographic tests. Replication and
electrical resistance techniques were also employed, but their accuracy was questionable,
as they are primarily surface, as opposed to volumetric, techniques.

In the early 1990’s, ESEERCO (Empire State Electric Energy Research Corporation)
requested that a review of the PODIS technology be conducted. A utility survey was
conducted and it was found that the code was very conservative for nickel-based welds.
From this program, a new code (DMW LIFE) was developed for ESEERCO. In the mid-
1990’s, SI used the probabilistic DMW LIFE on a project for PEPCO, wherein failure
projections were made for DMWs , based on a few tube samples per boiler. In general,
the predictions were reasonable and showed that weld failures could begin and increase
over the next 5 – 10 years of operation. None did occur before this inspection.

Focused Ultrasonic Techniques

SI had developed TestPro, a PC-based digital UT system, in the early 1980’s. One of the
first utility applications was for determining the wall and internal oxide thickness of
SH/RH tubes. Using the principle of focused sound waves, a similar technique was
developed for interrogating the weld metal/ferritic interface using a scanning transducer
as shown in Figure 1 (2).

Figure 1. DMW Scanning Transducer Assembly.

Based on laboratory and early in-boiler tests, SI felt that an accuracy of +/- 10% on
through-wall damage was feasible.

Inspection Results

During April 1998, the Morgantown Station Unit #1 boiler SH DMWs were examined by
SI. The DMWs were located in the penthouse, consisting of 171 platen assemblies with
DMWs in tube rows 19 through 24, exclusively. Due to access limitations and the small
size of the tubing (1.5-inch diameter), only one scan could be performed on tubes 19, 20,
23 and 24. Two (2) scans were performed on tubes 21 and 22. The inspections were
carried out from the space under the header between rows 21 and 22, which limited the
available access and speed of the inspection.

A total of 870 DMWs were specified for examination, resulting in a total number of scans
of 1160 scans, when 2 per tube 21 and 22 are included. Of the specified 1160 scans, 23
(or about 2%) were not performed due to tube surface conditions or access limitations.
336 scans (or about 30%) exhibited no recordable indications. After all data was collected
(four twelve hour shifts with two crews of two each), the permanently stored scans of
those tubes exhibiting recordable indications were reviewed and sized in approximate
10% increments of tube wall thickness. In addition, a “best effort” characterization was
performed on the indications to differentiate fabrication flaws from service-induced
damage. Representative B-Scan images from the DMW inspection were saved to disk,
and an example is shown in Figure 2.

Of the tubes examined, two (2) were found to have damage levels of about 80%, four (4)
were found to have damage levels of about 70%, seven (7) were found with 60% and
fourteen (14) were found with levels of 50%. It should be noted that in some instances, a
good inspection of the ID of the DMW (left side of Figure 2) could not be performed due
to the presence of a wide weld crown or accessibility considerations. This meant that the
damage level in the weld could be higher, especially since the ID is a primary initiation
spot when bending stresses are high. Thus a damage level of 70% (of the UT visible
weld could be somewhat larger when the entire cross section of the weld is examined.

Based on the analysis, five welds were recommended for removal and rapid turn-around
analysis by PEPCO’s Metallurgical Laboratory.
 Figure 2. Example of a B-Scan Image from a DMW.

Metallurgical Analysis

The five samples were sent to the laboratory where each weld was cross-sectioned at
o
approximately 90 intervals. A summary of the correlations is found in Table 1.

Table 1. Summary of Metallurgical and UT Results

Wall Extent of OD Damage UT Results Metallurgical Comments

Thickness
0.345” 0.233” 68% 50% Large OD Notch + Midwall
Microcracking
0.412” 0.339” 82% 50% “
0.375” 0.315” 84% 50% “
0.413” 0.320” 77% 80% OD Creep Microcracking
0.411” 0.118” 29% 70% Isolated Slag Inclusion at
31% Through-Wall
0.411” 0.118” 37% 70% Isolated Slag Inclusion at
71% Through-Wall
0.400” 0.154” 39% 50% OD Creep Microcracking
 0.398” 0.320” 80% 60% Fine Mid-Wall
Microcracking
0.373” 0.285” 69% 60% Large OD Notch and Fine
Mid-Wall Cracking
0.372” .320” 86% 60% Large OD Notch + Midwall
Microcracking

Typical photomicrographs of the damage are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Typical Photomicrographs of Damage Found in Three of the Welds.
OD Notches are on the Right Side of the Photomicrograph.
The metallurgical results, in general, correlated well with the UT results and the large
differences in the third row of the summary table can be explained by the mid-wall
inclusions, which returned a UT signal, resulting in an overly conservative estimate of the
amount of damage. The lack of UT signals from the ID of the DMWs was the cause of
the non-conservative UT estimates. It was concluded in PEPCO’s final report that the
UT technique was a good screening tool for identifying the most severely damaged
DMWs. Following a review of all of the data, it was recommended that an additional 32
DMWs be removed from service to ensure the long-term reliability of the superheater.

Discussion of Results

The overall evaluation of the data showed that the vast majority of tubes (97%) contained
less than 50% damage, which is good performance for a unit with 200,000+ operating
hours. A plot of damage levels is shown in Figure 4.

Distribution of Damage

90

80

70

60
Damage %

50

40

30

20

10

0
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% With Damage

Figure 4. Distribution of Damage in the UT Results.

The one factor that could easily explain the good performance of these welds is a rather
uniform temperature distribution across the boiler. Using DMW LIFE, an estimate of the
damage expected can be made versus temperature and the results are shown in Figure 5.
 Damage Index Versus Temperature

1.2

0.8
Damage Fraction

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
980 1000 1020 1040 1060 1080 1100 1120
Temperature, F

Figure 5. Damage Fraction Versus Temperature for 200,000 Hours Operation.

The small percentage of tubes that exhibited a damage fraction of 50% or greater
operated at temperatures of 1060F or higher (or possibly had very high bending stresses).
This is fairly normal for a boiler to have a +/- 50F spread around a main steam outlet
temperature of 1000F. Thus it appears that about 3% of the tubes were operating in the
temperature range 1060 – 1090F.

In order to assess the value of the inspection and DMW replacement strategy, future
failure projections are required to develop a cost/risk benefit analysis. Traditional theory
relies on a linear rate of DMW damage accumulation and that is the method for
extrapolating damage projections. Also, since a +/- 10% standard deviation in the ability
to measure damage with UT seems reasonable, then using the Monte Carlo technique, the
uncertainty in the UT DMW damage can easily be expressed as follows:

Damage = Damage * (1 +/- 0.1),

With the 0.1 randomly picked from a normal distribution with a mean of 1 and a SD of
0.1. If the time of operation is assigned a normalized value of 1, then the probability of
tube failures versus operating time can easily be generated as shown in Figure 6.
 Percentage of Tubes Failured

45

40 y = 0.2684x12.317
R2 = 0.9849
35

30
Percentage Failed

25

20

15

10

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Time Increase

Figure 6. Percentage of Population Expected to Fail Versus Operating Time.

(Time Value of 1 is the Time of Inspection)

A future failure is defined as the randomly generated damage index exceeding 0.95. The
population of damage used for this case was the 26 tubes with damage greater than 50%
(the population has a mean of 57.7 % damage, with a standard deviation of 9.7%). All of
this assumes that the basic mode of boiler operation remains constant for future operating
intervals. Firing harder or changing to cyclic operation can drastically change the tube
temperature distribution across a boiler and could result in higher than expected failure
rates.

Since all welds exceeding 50% were removed from service, the new population has a
much lower mean damage (15.6%) and higher standard deviation (13.3%). When this
model was run for a time increase of 1.5, the projected failure rate was 0.03% for the time
interval.

What this exercise shows is that the decision to replace the 37 worst welds has reduced
the expected number of tube failures over the next (today’s operating hours * 1.5) time
interval from 9 – 11 (35 - 40% of 26) to zero for all practical purposes.

One very important result of this inspection is that PEPCO now has a “map” of the
DMWs in their boiler. Should it become necessary to retest the DMWs in the future in
order to determine that damage accumulation is linear, or that boiler operation has
changed, UT testing can be concentrated in the most critical areas, thus reducing
inspection and preparation costs. Such inspections could be staged during very short 2 –
4 day outages, minimizing boiler downtime. If, after 1.5x hours of additional operation,
PEPCO elects to perform a full or limited DMW inspection, similar results should be
obtained and selected DMW replacement could be used to extend the failure –free period
of operation to 2x current operating hours.

Conclusions

1. UT testing of DMWs can be rapidly implemented during an outage and has an

accuracy of about +/- 10% on damage detection. As with the progress made in
the oxide thickness technique, better accuracies can be obtained with more
experienced NDE technicians and perhaps some weld crown grinding.

2. Having a DMW “damage map” enables utilities to make selective DMW

replacements during a scheduled outage, which can drastically reduce future
failures and maximize boiler availability. It also serves as a tool to avoid
wholesale replacement of sections, which is becoming less justifiable in today’s
competitive generation market.

3. The statistical approach used in this example can readily be extended to risk-
based inspection scheduling and economic risk/benefit analysis, which are
expected to become more well recognized as maintenance tools of the future.

References

1. “Dissimilar Metal Weld Failure Analysis and Development Program”, EPRI CS-
4252, Final Report, November 1985.

2. “Dissimilar Metal Welds for Defect Detection, Characterization and Sizing” EPRI
International Conference on Boiler Tube Failures in Fossil Plants November 11 - 13,
1997, Nashville, TN.