Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977

www.elsevier.com/locate/engfailanal

Experience on in-service damage in power plant components

a,*
Jorma Salonen , Pertti Auerkari a, Olli Lehtinen b, Mikko Pihkakoski c

a
VTT, P.O. Box 1000, FI-02044 VTT (Espoo), Finland
b
Fortum Power and Heat, P.O. Box 100, 00048 Fortum (Naantali), Finland
c
Helsinki Energy, P.O. Box 469, 00101 Helsinki, Finland

Received 17 August 2006; accepted 1 December 2006

Available online 5 February 2007

Abstract

Two principal groups of failure mechanisms appear in power plant components. On one hand, each component is usu-
ally known to suffer at least potentially from certain failure mechanisms that are expected and largely accounted for in
design, manufacturing and assembly of the plant. Such mechanisms include for example creep, fatigue and corrosion under
the foreseen service conditions. Even these mechanisms can contribute to real failures, because the real plant and its com-
ponents may not turn out to fulfil the requirements, or because the plant is used longer or under different conditions from
those initially expected. On the other hand, something unexpected can also happen in real service, so that other than
expected failure mechanisms may intervene. Examples are shown on both types of failure mechanisms. Creep damage
can be expected to limit the component life in superheaters and hot steam lines. Inspections on creep damage are widely
used to indicate minimum life, or allowable time to next inspection. In general, unexpected failures are therefore not very
common even after exceeding the nominal design life. However, unexpected mechanisms such as internal thermal shock
cracking in the steam lines can result in failures much earlier than design life limit. Such damage is much more difficult
to accommodate in the inspection and preventive maintenance programs, because it is more difficult to observe and inher-
ently missed from the expected mechanism list.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Damage; Creep; Thermal fatigue; Power plant; Residual life

1. Introduction

The high temperature components of power plants are typically designed for a finite life against some
known or foreseen damage mechanisms such as creep, fatigue, erosion or corrosion. The design life is not
expected to be equal to the actual life, as the true service conditions or the actual material and component
performance are not exactly known at the time of design. However, if the damage mechanisms are correctly
foreseen, the progress of these mechanisms can be potentially monitored during service, at least occasionally,
and improved estimates made of the actual life. Long service life of typical power plants also means that var-

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +358 20 722 5422; fax: +358 20 722 7002.
E-mail address: jorma.salonen@vtt.fi (J. Salonen).

1350-6307/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engfailanal.2006.12.007
 J. Salonen et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977 971

ious changes or improvements are likely well before the end of life. While multiple improvements may be likely
in e.g. control systems, the principal mechanical components are less frequently modified. Nevertheless,
changes that affect operation, control and monitoring systems may also affect the accumulation of life limiting
damage in these components. In addition, modification or repairs may introduce in their extreme new lease of
life, or additional damage. However, in all these cases much of the damage can be seen to be in control
through the monitoring and maintenance system applied in the plant.
The situation becomes more complicated when truly unforeseen damage appears. Such damage is outside
the design envelope, and not necessarily covered by the usual monitoring and maintenance programs.
Examples are taken below on both types of failure mechanisms. Creep damage can be expected to limit the
component life in superheaters and hot steam lines. Inspections on creep damage are widely used to indicate
minimum life, or allowable time to next inspection. In general, unexpected failures are therefore not very com-
mon even after exceeding the nominal design life. However, unexpected mechanisms such as internal thermal
shock cracking in the steam lines can result in failures much earlier than design life limit. Such damage is much
more difficult to accommodate in the inspection and preventive maintenance programs, because it is more dif-
ficult to observe and inherently missed from the expected mechanism list.

2. Monitoring of foreseen creep damage

Typical plant locations where creep damage can be expected include for example hot steam lines and super-
heaters/reheaters. Although both of these are often designed for some explicitly or inherently assumed creep
life, these components are somewhat different from monitoring point of view. In thick-walled components of
the steam lines, the operating temperature is relatively well controlled and stress levels of more concern, e.g.
after long-term changes in the support systems. Superheaters and reheaters are made of thinner tubing, where
system constraints are usually lower, but where the combustion conditions including the operating tempera-
ture are less constant. Also, superheaters and reheaters are subjected to the internal flue gas environment of
the boiler, and therefore to other damage mechanisms than creep (such as hot corrosion/oxidation and erosive
wear).
Steam lines are frequently subject to in-service replica inspections, where the creep damage as creep cavi-
tation and cracking is considered as an indication of growing and life-limiting damage. An example of such
damage [1], taken from a metallographic inspection of the plastic replica, is outlined in Figs. 1 and 2. In this

Fig. 1. Reheat steam mixer of a coal fired plant (530 C/40 bar).
972 J. Salonen et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977

Fig. 2. Creep cavitation in a weld of the reheat steam mixer after 168 000 h of service.

case creep cavitation up to oriented (chained, class 3) cavity formation was observed from the welds of a hot
reheat steam mixer of a coal-fired unit after 168 000 service hours at about 530 C. The material of the com-
ponent is 1Cr–0.5Mo steel, and in this case the corresponding weld metal.
In the early days of 1960s–1970s, relatively strict view of such damage was often taken, so that the damaged
area was repaired according to the requirements of the national pressure vessel authority (or equivalent reg-
ulatory inspection body). However, with accumulating experience on the growth rates of such damage, and in
relation to the actual risk of component failures, significant life extension may be acceptable today even after
finding such damage. Experience-based conservative rules are included into guidelines that are today available
to help in such decision making [2–7].
In the case of the present example, a minimum of several years of additional life (at least some 35 000 h) was
predicted for the component. The unit has currently been used for more than 200 000 service hours, and the
component remains in service. It is, however, included in a scheduled inspection program for further monitor-
ing of the creep damage.
Another example can be taken of a reheater unit inside the same boiler. After 185 000 h of service, one
reheater tube (B 70 · 4 mm, Fig. 3) started to leak, and after cutting a tube sample out of this location this
leakage was found to be due to a typical creep failure with abundant cavitation damage in the vicinity of the
failure surface (Fig. 4). Considerable difference was observed in the micro-structure of the hotter (fire) side and
the cooler (external wall) side of the tube (Fig. 5).

Fig. 3. Failure (leakage) location of the reheater tube.

 J. Salonen et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977 973

Fig. 4. Cross-section of the failure location of Fig. 3; note abundant cavitation damage.

Fig. 5. Microstructure of the tube material outside the failure area: (a) hot side; (b) cooler side.

Although the expected and measured temperature of the steam after the reheater unit was only about
465 C, the actual material temperature on the hotter side had apparently exceeded 500 C. For the
material of the tube (0.3% Mo steel), this was sufficient to result in failure after fairly extensive time
in service.
However, further investigation on the other tubes in the reheater unit showed that none of the remaining
tubes were apparently subjected to a similarly severe combination of service conditions. The predicted mini-
mum additional service life, now taking also into account the other potential damage processes in addition to
creep, was several years (about 35 000 h). Again, the unit was included in the inspection program for damage
monitoring. For this purpose, a combination of replica inspections, diametral and wall thickness measure-
ments have been applied at selected locations.

3. Unforeseen damage: thermal shock cracking in a steam line

In 2005, an unexpected leak was detected during service of a HRSG in a high pressure steam line
(500 C/49 bar), in a 30 pipe bend (R800, 219.1 · 14.2 mm) from a vertical pipe section. This location
is in a reduction steam line, where in steady state operation no steam is flowing but which is subjected
to full pressure and temperature of the high pressure steam. The design values (530 C/72 bar) of the pipe
are considerably higher than the actual service values, so the observed through-wall crack only after
974 J. Salonen et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977

97 000 h of service was considered surprising. The material of the pipe is 10CrMo9-10 (P22 or 2.25Cr–
1Mo) steel.
The through-wall crack in the location of the observed steam leak was only about 20 mm in length on the
external surface, and circumferential in orientation. After cutting the damaged bend off from the pipe, the
internal surface of the pipe showed extensive cracking in magnetic particle testing (MT, Figs. 6 and 7). The
longest internal cracks were also circumferential in orientation, and about twice the length of the crack on
the external surface. However, internal cracking also in other orientation were present (Fig. 6). The internal
surface of the pipe also showed about 50 mm wide zone of a deviating colouring in the longitudinal direction
(Fig. 8).
In the direction perpendicular to the main cracks, metallographic sections were prepared for more detailed
evaluation of the damage (Figs. 9 and 10). Numerous short cracks were also seen next to the main cracks. All
cracks were straight, unbranched and filled with oxide. The crack tips were somewhat rounded, suggesting that
oxidation had time to occur up to the tip due to non-continuous crack growth. By chemical composition,
microstructure and hardness the material was considered typical for the steel 10CrMo9-10 after about
100 000 h exposure to the expected service conditions.
The observations are typical to thermal fatigue cracking at high temperature. The internal zone of light col-
ouring was located on the lower part of the pipe section, and suggests that this area was intermittently sub-
jected to contact with liquid water or condensate. The internal surface oxide on this area was clearly different
in morphology from that elsewhere in the pipe (Fig. 11).
There appears to be a clear explanation to the observed damage. In the normal operation, the pipe section
is a dead end section without steam flow, and consequently water may condense in the cool end of the piping.
The condensed water, when flowing to the hot surfaces, can result in a classical thermal shock of these surfaces
independently of the material. Also, the case study revealed that the cool end drainage of the pipeline had not
been operating properly.

Fig. 6. (a) Internal and (b) external surface of the piece extracted as shown in Fig. 7, with crack indications.
 J. Salonen et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977 975

Fig. 7. Pipe bend, with cracked location extracted.

Fig. 8. Longitudinal (horizontal) zone of deviating colour on the internal surface of the pipe.

Fig. 9. Longitudinal cross-section of the inner surface of the pipe, with multiple unbranched cracks.

As the boiler also has another similar pipe section, it was also subjected to inspection in the next suitable
shut-down, and comparable internal thermal shock cracking was indeed found also there. After repairs,
both dead-end pipe sections were improved by adding circulating steam flow to the whole length of these
pipe sections. Endoscope monitoring has been applied to confirm that no signs of internal water flow or
cracking have any more appeared in the repaired pipes. The observed damage has shown the importance
of well functioning drainage, for which additional inspections have been included in the maintenance
programme.
976 J. Salonen et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977

Fig. 10. Detail of Fig. 8: the tip region of an oxide-filled transgranular internal crack.

Fig. 11. Details of the internal pipe surface (SEM images): (a) discoloured region; (b) region outside discolouring.

4. Conclusive remarks

Two principal groups of failure mechanisms appear in power plant components. On one hand, each com-
ponent is usually known to suffer at least potentially from certain failure mechanisms that are expected and
largely accounted for in design, manufacturing and assembly of the plant. Such mechanisms include for exam-
ple creep, fatigue and corrosion under the foreseen service conditions. Even these mechanisms can contribute
to real failures, because the real plant and its components may not turn out to fulfil the requirements, or
 J. Salonen et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 970–977 977

because the plant is used longer or under different conditions from those initially expected. On the other hand,
something unexpected can also happen in real service, for example when other than expected failure mecha-
nisms may intervene or contribute. The expected damage mechanisms are in principle amenable to in-service
intervention through monitoring and maintenance, and can be often managed by appropriate planning. This is
more difficult in case of unexpected events, but even then at least some preventive action can be taken to avoid
repeating the cases.
Examples are shown on both types of failure mechanisms. Creep damage can be expected to limit the com-
ponent life in superheaters and hot steam lines. Inspections on creep damage are widely used to indicate min-
imum life, or allowable time to next inspection. In general, unexpected failures are therefore not very common
even after exceeding the nominal design life. However, unexpected mechanisms such as internal thermal shock
cracking in the steam lines can result in failures much earlier than design life limit. Such damage is much more
difficult to accommodate in the inspection and preventive maintenance programs, as it is more difficult to
observe and inherently missed from the expected mechanism list. Much of the useful experience from such
damage can be implemented both to maintenance and to design of new equipment, if the in-service experience
is fully applied both in the existing plant and at the suppliers.

References

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