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Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 22 (2009) 719–726

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Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries

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Failure case studies of SA213-T22 steel tubes of boiler through

computer simulations
J. Purbolaksono a, *, J. Ahmad b, A. Khinani a, A.A. Ali a, A.Z. Rashid a
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Km 7 Jalan Kajang-Puchong, Kajang 43009, Selangor, Malaysia
b
Kapar Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd, Jalan Tok Muda, Kapar 42200, Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Increased temperature and decreased hardness values of the tube metal and development of oxide scale
Received 8 April 2009 on the inner surface of boiler tubes over prolonged period of time are typical problems in power plants.
Received in revised form Appropriate life assessments or condition monitoring of boiler tube should be carried out from time
8 June 2009
to time. Computer simulations may economically support the post-failure assessment method, i.e. visual
Accepted 9 June 2009
inspections, metallurgical examinations and mechanical strength measurements. However, estimations
obtained from the simulations may provide an advanced warning to take preventive actions prior to
Keywords:
failure. In this work two failure cases of the reheater and superheater tubes made of a typical material of
SA213-T22 steel
Creep rupture SA213-T22 steel are evaluated. As the oxide scales are increasingly developed on the inner surface, the
Remnant life assessment increasing of temperature and decreasing of hardness value in tube metal for both cases are determined.
Elevated temperature The remnant life estimations are then made in the form of creep cumulative damages.
Boiler tube Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Finite element modeling

1. Introduction
The strength of low-alloy steel may change for prolonged period
of service. Estimations of change in temperature, hardness and oxide
scale thickness during service may be used to estimate the remnant
life of the component. In particular, estimations of the average
temperature in tube metal are important in heat recovery steam
generator (HRSG). It may provide an advanced warning of failure by
estimating temperature increase in water-tube boiler.
Port and Herro (1991) reported that almost 90% of failures
caused by long-term overheating occur in superheaters, reheaters
and wall tubes. Tubes that are especially subjected to overheating
often contain significant deposits. The deposits reduce coolant flow
and the tubes will experience excessive fire-side heat input. Scales
and other materials on external surfaces will slightly reduce metals
temperatures. The thermal resistance of the tube wall may cause
a very slight drop in temperature across the wall. When heat
transfer through the steam-side surface is considered, the effect of
deposits is reversed. Steam layers and scales insulate the metal
from the cooling effects of the steam. It results in reducing of heat
transfer into the steam and increasing of metal temperatures.
Starr, Castle, and Walker (2004) also described that oxidation on
the steam side of the tubing can induce premature failures due to
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ60 3 89212213; fax: þ60 3 89212116.
E-mail address: judha@uniten.edu.my (J. Purbolaksono).
the insulating effect of the oxide scales raising tube temperatures.
In addition, scale spallation could also increase tube temperatures,
as spallation debris may collect in the bottom of tubes, blocking
steam flow. Attention is drawn to a potential problem in which the
tube temperature and rate of oxidation increase with time as the
oxide builds up.
Chaudhuri (2006) described some aspects of metallurgical
assessment of boiler tubes. He discusses some failure problems in
carbon steel, reheater and superheater tubes. Ray et al. (2007)
reported remaining life assessment and creep analysis of superheater
and reheater tubes made of 2.25Cr–1Mo steel of a thermal power
plant. The tubes had operated for 17 years with average operating
temperature of 540  C and having design pressure of 40 MPa. The
remnant life is predicted through dimensional, hardness and tensile
measurements. Viswanathan, Foulds, and Roberts (1988) performed
estimation on the temperature of reheater and superheater tubes in
fossils boilers. They made correlation between hardness and Larsen–
Miller parameter for 1Cr–½Mo, 2¼Cr–1Mo and 9Cr–1Mo steels.
Finite element simulations have been used to investigate failures
in superheater tube (Othman, Purbolaksono, & Ahmad, 2009) and
reheater tubes (Purbolaksono, Hong, Nor, Othman, & Ahmad, 2009).
Othman et al. (2009) simulated the deformed superheater tube
using the finite element method. The simulation results have a good
conformity with the finding from the visual site inspection. Pur-
bolaksono et al. (2009) reported evaluation on reheater tube failure.
The geometry and the scale thickness of the as-received failed tube

0950-4230/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2009.06.005

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720 J. Purbolaksono et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 22 (2009) 719–726
Nomenclature
Cp specific heat at constant pressure (J kg1 C1)
D inner diameter of the tube (m)
G Gas mass velocity
h convection heat transfer coefficient (W m1 C1)
k thermal conductivity (W m1 C1)
L length of the tube (m)
o
m mass flow rate (kg h1)
N number of tube
Nu Nusselt number
P Larsen–Miller parameter
Pr Prandt number
Re Reynold number
S pitch
T temperature ( C)
DT Increasing of metal temperature ( C)
were measured and used to generate the finite element models. The
scale thickness inside tube over service time is considered as
a linear scale growth. Results obtained from the simulations have
shown agreement with the result from the microscopic examina-
tion. Both results showed that the failed reheater tube had over-
heating for prolonged period of time.
Nowadays, a large percentage of power and chemical plants
worldwide have been in operation for long durations. There are strong
economic reasons and technical justifications for continued operation
of the power plants. In order to realize the continuing operations in
practice, however, appropriate techniques and methodologies are
needed to evaluate the current condition of the plant components and
to estimate their remaining useful lives. The techniques should also be
valuable with respect to relatively younger power plants in the
context of safety, availability and reliability, operation, maintenance
and inspection practices. An important ingredient in the continuing
operation of power plants is the remaining life assessment technology
(Viswanathan, 1989). The remaining life estimations could help in
setting up proper inspection schedules and operating procedures in
order to avoid premature retirement of the plants.
An accurate prediction of the temperature distribution in tube
metal of the superheater and reheater will aid the power plant
inspectors or engineers in evaluating the remaining life of the boiler
tubes. A continually increasing scale thickness may occur on the inner
surface of superheater and reheater tubes during the service.
Presence of oxide scales on the inner surface of boiler tubes may
significantly contribute to the increased tube metal temperature.
Consequently, in the prolonged exposure this phenomenon will
worsen situation that leads to potential tube rupture problems. When
a power plant is forced to shut down because of the single component
failure, the cost of the lost electric-power generation can run to
several hundred thousand dollars a day. It is essential to perform life
assessments through the operational condition-based monitoring of
the power plant regularly than allowing the equipments to fail. In this
work the life assessments are performed by using finite element
simulations and utilizing the empirical formulae through iterative
procedures. The first empirical formula is correlating scale thickness
with Larsen–Miller parameter (Rehn, Apblett, and Stringer,1981). The
second empirical formula is correlating the experimental hardness
data for 2¼Cr–1Mo steel with Larsen–Miller parameter (Viswana-
than et al., 1988). The finite element analysis is carried out using
software package of ANSYS (ANSYS, 2008). Finite element models for
heat transfer analyses, that involve forced convections on the inner
surface due to the turbulent flow of steam and on the outer surface
Please cite this article in press as: Purbolaksono, J., et al., Failure case studies of SA213-T22 steel tubes of boiler through computer simulations,
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2009.06.005
t time (h)
W gas flow (kg h1)
X scale thickness (m)
Greek symbols
m viscosity (kg m1 s1)
r density (kg m3)
Subscripts
aveh average for considering hardness
aves Average for considering scale
g gas
i inner
o outer
s steam
t transverse
due to cross flow of the hot flue gas over bare tubes, are carried out in
order to determine temperature distribution in the tube. An iterative
procedure is performed to determine the average temperature and
hardness of the tube steel over period of time as oxide scale thickness
on the inner surface increases. Two failure cases in reheater (Case 1)
and superheater (Case 2) tubes are evaluated through the finite
element simulations and iterative procedures. The reheater and
superheater tubes are made of a typical material of SA213-T22 steel.
As the oxide scales are increasingly developed on the inner surface,
the increasing of temperature and decreasing of hardness in
tube metal for both cases are determined. The remnant life estima-
tions are then made in the form of creep cumulative damages. Besides
computer simulations utilizing parameters of the operational
condition may economically support the post-failure assessment
method, i.e. visual inspections, metallurgical examinations and
mechanical strength measurements, the estimations obtained from
the simulations may provide an advanced warning to take preventive
actions prior to failure.
2. Heat transfer parameters
Model of the tube section used is 25 mm in length. In modeling
of the steady state heat transfer for the problem using ANSYS
(ANSYS, 2008), the area of the model is divided into two regions, i.e.
scale region and tube region (see Fig. 1). The steam region is taken
into account in determining the convection coefficient of steam
film for fully developed turbulent flow in a circular tube.
The chemical composition of SA213-T22 steel is listed in Table 1.
Steam properties and the thermal conductivities for SA213-T22 and
oxide scale (magnetite) are shown in Table 2. The steam-side scale
is usually reported to be duplex (inner spinel (Fe–Cr–Mo)3O4 layer
and outer magnetite (Fe3O4) layer) or triplex (inner spinel layer,
middle magnetite layer and outer hematite (Fe2O3) layer). In this
study material of the scale is treated to be all magnetite.
Phenomenon of heat transfer inside the boiler tube is considered
as forced convection with turbulent flow. Correlation for fully devel-
oped turbulent flow in tube is expressed as (Incropera & DeWitt, 1996)
Nus ¼ 0:023ðRes Þ0:8 ðPrs Þ0:4 (1)
where Res is Reynolds number that may be expressed as
o
Res ¼ 4ms :
(2)
pDi ms
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Table 2
Properties of fluid and solid materials.

Inlet steam properties (Incropera & DeWitt, 1996)

Case 1 Case 2
Temperature, 576  C Temperature, 540  C
Thermal conductivity 0.0636 W/m  C 0.0604 W/m  C
Specific heat 2185 J/kg  C 2161 J/kg  C
Dynamic viscosity 2.965 e-05 N s/m2 2.834 e-05 N s/m2
Mass flow rate 3600 kg/h 7200 kg/h
hot gas
oxide Water wall properties (French, 2000)
scale tube metal Tube material SA213-T22
Thermal conductivity 34.606 W/m  C

Fe3O4 iron oxide (magnetite) (French, 2000)

Thermal conductivity 0.592 W/m  C

in which Cpg and kg are specific heat and thermal conductivity of

the flue gas, respectively. The corresponding Reynolds number Reg
may be expressed as

GD0
steam
Reg ¼ (7)
remaining tube 12mg
metal thickness
hollow
radius initial tube metal thickness
where G is gas mass velocity and may be defined as

Wg
G ¼ 12 (8)
Fig. 1. Model of the superheater and reheater tubes with scale on the inner surface. Nw LðSt  D0 Þ
in which Wg is gas flow; Nw is number of tube wide; St is transverse
pitch (see Fig. 2), and L is the tube length.
o
in which ms is mass flow rate of the steam; Di is the inner diameter However, the evaluation will be more accurate if the non-
of the tube; ms is steam viscosity, and Prs is its Prandtl number that luminous coefficients for water vapour and carbon dioxide are
is defined as taken into account in determining the gas side convective heat
transfer coefficient. Hence, there will be an additional increase
ms Cps on the overall heat transfer coefficient at flue gas temperature of
Prs ¼ (3)
ks 800–900  C by 5–6%, assuming that the external or direct radiation
from the furnace is absent.
in which Cps and ks are specific heat and thermal conductivity of the
steam, respectively.
3. Estimations of temperatures, scale thickness and hardness
Convection coefficient of steam film for fully developed turbu-
lent flow in circular tube is expressed as (Incropera & DeWitt,
The increasing scale thickness may occur in superheater and
1996):
reheater tubes during the service. Therefore, estimation must be
ks made of the average temperature in the oxide scale as a function of
hs ¼ 0:023 ðRes Þ0:8 ðPrs Þ0:4 (4) time and scale thickness. In this work in order to perform a scale
Di
growth prediction, steam-side scale formation for ferritic steel of
where ks is steam conductivity. 1–3% chromium correlated with the Larson–Miller parameter as
Heat transfer outside the boiler tube is considered as forced reported by Rehn et al. (1981) is utilized (see Fig. 3). The data of
convection due to cross flow of the hot flue gas over bare tubes. Fig. 3 may be approximated as
A conservative estimated convection coefficient of flue gas hg on
X
 
outer surface of bare tube in inline and staggered arrangements
log ¼ 0:00022P  7:25 (9)
(see Fig. 2) is given by (Ganapathy, 2003) 0:0254

12kg
0:6
0:33 where X is scale thickness in mm.

hg ¼ 0:33 Reg Prg (5) In the Larson–Miller method, time and temperature are related
D0
by the following equation:
where kg is flue gas conductivity; D0 is outer diameter of the tube;
9
 
Prg is defined as
P ¼ T þ 492 ðC þ Log tÞ (10)
5
mg Cpg
Prg ¼ (6) where P is the Larson–Miller parameter; T is the absolute temper-
kg
ature in degree Celsius; t is the service time in hours; C is a constant
equal to 20.
Table 1
Correlation between hardness (HV) and the Larsen–Miller
Chemical compositions of SA213-T22 steel. parameter for 2¼Cr–1Mo steel in the as-quenched condition (see
Fig. 4) may be expressed as (Viswanathan et al., 1988)
Code C Si Mn P, max S, max Cr Mo
SA213-T22 0.05–0.15 0.5 0.3–0.6 0.025 0.025 1.90–2.60 0.87–1.13 Hardness ðHVÞ ¼ 961:713  0:020669P (11)

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Fig. 2. Inline and staggered arrangements of the bare tubes.

The increasing of scale thickness DX in the reheater or super-
heater tubes (SA213-T22) may be obtained from Eq. (9) corre-
sponding to the given running hours and average temperature in
the oxide scale. The steps of time as shown in Table 3 are used in the
iterative procedures. The iterative procedures used to determine
scale thickness and hardness of the tube as a function of time and
temperature are as follows:
3.1. Procedure 1
For initial step i ¼ 1, the design temperature for the steam is set
to Ts at the inlet of reheater or superheater tube. From the
numerical simulation in the absence of scale (X0), the average
temperature of Taves_i is the temperature on the inner surface of the
tube, the average temperature of Taveh_i is determined from average
of the temperatures on the inner and outer surfaces of the tube. Eqs.
(9) and (10) are used to calculate the scale thickness of Xia for the
service hours of 1 h and the scale thickness of Xib for the service
hours of 250 h (see Table 3) using Taves1. Next, by subtracting one
from the other, the scale increase of DXi (¼Xib  Xia) is determined
and a new scale thickness of Xi (¼X0 þ DXi) is obtained. Eqs. (10) and
(11) with Taveh_i are used to determine the hardness of Hia for the
service hours of 1 h and the hardness of Hib for the service hours of
250 h. Hardness Hi is equal to Hia.

Fig. 3. Steam-side scale formation for ferritic steels of 1–3% chromium correlated with Fig. 4. Correlation between hardness and the Larsen–Miller parameter for 1Cr–½Mo,
the Larsen–Miller parameter (Rehn et al., 1981). 2¼Cr–Mo and 9Cr–1Mo steels (Viswanathan et al., 1988).

Please cite this article in press as: Purbolaksono, J., et al., Failure case studies of SA213-T22 steel tubes of boiler through computer simulations,
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Table 3
Steps of time used in the iterative procedure.
Step Hours
1 250
2 500
3 1000
4 2500
5 5000
6 10,000
7 20,000
8 40,000
9 60,000
10 80,000
11 100,000
12 120,000
3.2. Procedure 2
Set i ¼ i þ 1. The average temperatures of Taves_i and Taveh_i are
then determined from the numerical modeling with the new scale
thickness on the inner surface. The average temperature of Taves_i
obtained from the average of the temperatures on inner surface
temperature and at the scale/metal interface is then used to
calculate the incremental thickness of scale from 250 to 500 h using
Eqs. (9) and (10). For service hours of 500 h, P is calculated using Eq.
(10) and Xib is found from Eq. (9). For service hours of 250 h, P is
calculated using Eq. (10) and Xia is found from Eq. (9). Subtracting
one from the other (Xib  Xia) produces the incremental scale
formation from 250 to 500 h, which is added to Xi to give a new
scale thickness of Xi. The average temperature of Taveh_i obtained
from the average of the temperatures at scale/metal interface and
on the outer surface is then used to calculate the hardness of the
tube metal for service hours of 250 h and 500 h using Eqs. (10) and
(11). For service hours of 500 h, P is calculated using Eq. (10) and Hib
is found from Eq. (11). For service hours of 250 h, P is calculated
using Eq. (10) and Hia is found from Eq. (11). Hardness for service
hours of 250 h (¼Hi) may be determined from the average of Hia and
Hib. Repeat Procedure 2 for further predictions up to the required
hours with the steps of time shown in Table 3.
Since the initial increment of time determines the further esti-
mation results, it is proposed to use the steps of time as shown in
Table 3. A smaller increment of time might provide a better esti-
mation, whereas a bigger increment of time for initial iteration may
be resulting in inaccuracy estimation or less conservative predic-
tion. However, for estimations starting from the service hours of
20,000 h, an increment of time may be proposed to be taken at
every 20,000 h.
4. Finite element modeling
The geometry of the as-received tubes and heat transfer
parameters governing the problem are used to generate the finite
element models. It is important to note that all the geometrical
units used for modeling are in m. Hence, the meshing size control of
0.0001 is used to generate the 2D solid triangular elements in order
to allow the model having appropriate size of elements. The
properties of the elements are then defined as 2D-axisymmetric
solid elements.
Table 4
Geometry of the as-received tubes, service time and the inner scale thickness.
Case Inner Tube Service Scale Date of
radius, m thickness, mm time, h thickness, mm failure
1 0.0219 3.5 117,522 0.58 10/10/2003
2 0.0163 4.0 115,494 0.2 04/08/2003
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723
Table 5
Parameters used to determine gas mass velocity G for validation of actual data.
Case 1 Case 2
Gas flow, kg/h 500,000 800,000
Number of tube wide 50 50
Transverse pitch, m 0.1016 0.1016
Tube length, m 8 8
As described in Procedure 1, the finite element model is produced
in the absence of oxide scale at the initial step (i ¼ 1). The bulk
temperature and convection coefficient hg of the flue gas are applied
on the right edge of the model (Fig. 1). Next, the bulk temperature
and convection coefficient hs of the steam are applied on the left
edge of the model. In the presence of the oxide scale (i>1) the model
will have two domain areas, i.e. scale and tube metal. In order
to make connectivity of the domain areas at scale/metal interface,
a merge-size control of 0.00001 is used. The merge-size control
should considerably be smaller than the meshing size control. The
bulk temperature and convection coefficient hg of the flue gas are
applied on the right edge of the tube metal region and the bulk
temperature and convection coefficient hs of the steam are applied
on the left edge of the oxide scale region. The convection coefficients
of hs and hg are obtained by using Eqs. (4) and (5) respectively.
5. Case studies
The most common approach for calculating the cumulative
creep damage is computing the amount of life expended by using
time fraction as measures of damage. When the fractional damages
add up to unity, then the failure is postulated to occur. The most
prominent rule is given as (Robinson, 1938)
Xt
si
¼ 1 (12)
tri
where tsi is the service time and tri is the time to rupture.
The actual data of the available reports on the failed reheater
(Ahmad, 2004) and superheater (Ahmad, 2003) tubes at Kapar
Power Station Malaysia are used for the case studies. Detailed
descriptions of the failed tubes are as follows:
- Operating steam temperature of the reheater and superheater
tubes are 576  C and 540  C respectively. The average operating
steam pressures in Case 1 and Case 2 are 40 bar (4.0 MPa) and
100 bar (10 MPa) respectively.
- The average flue gas temperatures were reported at around
800  C for the reheater tube and 850  C for the superheater tube.
The detailed data taken from the reports are shown in Table 4.
Parameters used to determine gas mass velocity G and the esti-
mated convection coefficients hs and hg for the internal and
external surfaces are shown in Tables 5 and 6 respectively. Fig. 5
shows the isometric view of a half expansion model from 2D
axisymmetric model and the temperature distribution of Case 2 for
the service hours of 115,494 h. It can be seen that the temperature
on the external surface may be estimated at around 574  C.
Diagram of Larsen–Miller parameter with stress variation to
rupture of annealed material 2.25Cr–1Mo steel (ASTM) (Smith,
Table 6
The estimated convection coefficients hs and hg for internal and external surfaces
respectively.
Case hs, W/m2  C hg, W/m2  C
1 2053.65 126.01
2 6084.32 129.99
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724 J. Purbolaksono et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 22 (2009) 719–726

Fig. 5. Temperature ( C) distribution of Case 2 for the service hours of 115,494 h.

1971) as shown in Fig. 6 is utilized to determine the rupture time. In

order to obtain conservative estimation, the minimum curve
correlating stress variation and Larsen–Miller parameter is used.
The Larsen–Miller parameters for Case 1 and Case 2 may be
obtained from Fig. 6. It is shown that the parameters for Case 1 and
Case 2 are 39,900 and 37,800, respectively. The estimated life for
the tubes in Case 1 and Case 2 are determined in the form of the
cumulative creep damage as expressed in Eq. (11). If the total of the
fractional damages is greater or equal to 1, the failure is predicted to
occur. It can be seen from Fig. 7, the estimated lives for both cases
are around 6–15% higher than that of the actual data. The estimated
results are reasonably shown to be in agreement with the actual
data. The estimated scale thickness as shown in Table 7 is also
shown to be in agreement with the actual data (Table 4). The
increasing of the average temperatures of Case 1 is significantly
higher than that in Case 2 as shown in Fig. 8. It results in the
estimated hardness values for Case 1 showing moderately less than
Case 2. It is believed that the geometry of the tube and mass flow
rate of steam influence the phenomena of heat transfer. It is
important to note that if the applied internal steam pressure is
higher, the mass flow rate of the steam has also to be considerably
high. Insufficient mass flow rate of steam may cause a significant
increase of the metal tube temperature and scale growth. This
feature may be seen from the conditions of Case 1 and Case 2. It can
be seen from Table 7 and Fig. 8, the increased tube temperatures
would accelerate the developments of the oxide scale on the inner
surface. The relation between the hardness values and the average
temperature of the tube over period of time can be used for future
references. The strength of the low-alloy steel will change with the
increasing of temperature over period of time.
The life estimations through computer simulations utilizing
parameters of the operational condition may provide an advanced
warning to take preventive actions prior to failure. Poor mass flow rate Fig. 6. Diagram of Larsen–Miller parameter with stress variation to rupture of
of steam, higher operational steam temperature and higher convective annealed material 2.25Cr–1Mo steel (ASTM) (Smith, 1971) (1 ksi ¼ 6.895 MPa).

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1.4 325 620

305
1.2 610
285
Cumulative creep damage

Tubes are predicted to failure Hardness-Case 2

1 600
Hardness-Case 1
265
Case 1 - reheater tube Temperature-Case 2

Temperature, °C
Hardness, HV
0.8 Temperature-Case 1 590
Case 2 - superheater tube 245

225 580
0.6
205
570
0.4
185
560
0.2 165
550
0 145
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000
125 540
Service hours
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000
Fig. 7. The estimated cumulative creep damages. Service hours
Fig. 8. The estimated hardness and the average metal tube temperatures over period
coefficient and temperature of flue gas would lead to increasing tube of time.
metal temperature and oxide scale thickness. Tube metal temperature
may increase slowly over many years or rapidly over a few hours. in reduced cost. Then, life estimations of the boiler tubes through the
Internal oxide scales usually result in long-term overheating that computer simulations may be employed from time to time.
gradually increase the tube metal temperature. The increasing tube Failure analysis on the water-tube boiler can also be performed
metal temperature and oxide scale growth have a reciprocal casual. As by referring to Section 2, Part D of The ASME Boiler and Pressure
the tube metal temperature increase, so does the rate of internal scale Vessel Code (ASME, 1998) for the maximum allowable stress values
formation. As the oxide scale thickness increases, so does the tube and data from United States Steel Corporation (1972) as shown in
metal temperature. The cycle continues progressively over period of Table 8. The maximum allowable stresses and the operational hoop
time. Loss of boiler feedwater or impaired steam flow usually results in stresses of the tubes (Case 1 and Case 2) over the service hours are
rapid overheating and often rapid failure. Localized high temperature then plotted in Fig. 9. It can be illustrated that the critical conditions
flue gas flow definitely causes localized overheating of the boiler tube. may be predicted when the stresses in the tube exceeding the
These features potentially lead to rupture of the boiler tubes that maximum allowable stress. It can also be seen from Fig. 9 that the
consequently leads to unscheduled and costly outages. tube can be estimated when the overheating condition occurs.
It is an essential element of condition-based maintenance in Since the operating hoop stresses are higher than the allowable
which the equipment is maintained on the basis of its condition, or it stresses, tubes in Case 1 and Case 2 are estimated to be critical at
allows actions to be taken to avoid the consequences of failure, before the beginning of service. Even though the operating hoop stresses
the failure occurs. It is typically much more cost-effective than remain much lower than the ultimate strength shown in Table 8,
allowing the components to fail. By selecting a physical measurement a careful consideration needs to be taken. Monitoring on the
which indicates that deterioration is occurring, the readings on the temperature increase over period of time is particularly important
parameter need to be taken at regular interval. Since failure occurs to when overheating in the tube is concerned. Thus, combination of
individual components, the monitoring measurements need to focus estimating the life expectancy using the cumulative creep damage,
on the particular failure modes of the critical component. If a power considering the maximum allowable stresses and monitoring the
plant has been operating with breakdown maintenance or regular increasing of temperature in tube metal may provide better
planned maintenance, a change over to condition-based mainte- monitoring of the boiler tubes. Appropriate preventive actions may
nance can result in significant improvements in plant availability and be taken during the scheduled outage for close inspections and
necessary examinations in order to avoid forced outage due to
Table 7
a single failure of a component.
Estimations for scale thickness for Case 1and Case 2. It is reported that the microscopic examination for Case 1 and
Case 2 were also carried out to support the life assessment. The
Case 1 (reheater tube) Case 2 (superheater tube)
finding of Case 1 indicated that the tube metal microstructure had
Service hours Scale thickness, mm Service hours Scale thickness, mm a complete stage of spheroidization where the carbide particles
0 0.0000 0 0.0000
250 0.0556 250 0.0229
500 0.0736 500 0.0301 Table 8
1000 0.0965 1000 0.0392 The maximum allowable stresses and tensile strengths for seamless tube SA213-T22.
2500 0.1371 2500 0.0550
5000 0.1783 5000 0.0707 Temperature,  C Max. allow. stress, Tensile strength, MPa (United
10,000 0.2315 10,000 0.0907 MPa (ASME, 1998) States Steel Corporation, 1972)
20,000 0.3008 20,000 0.1163 537.78 55.16 377.16
40,000 0.3916 40,000 0.1491 565.56 39.30 –
60,000 0.4584 60,000 0.1728 593.33 26.20 282.69
80,000 0.5133 80,000 0.1920 621.11 16.55 –
100,000 0.5610 100,000 0.2085 648.89 9.65 –
117,522 0.5982 115,494 0.2200 784.00 – 151.69

Please cite this article in press as: Purbolaksono, J., et al., Failure case studies of SA213-T22 steel tubes of boiler through computer simulations,
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2009.06.005
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

726 J. Purbolaksono et al. / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 22 (2009) 719–726

50 6. Conclusions
620
Finite element simulations incorporated with the iterative proce-
610 40 dures may be used to estimate the increased temperature and
Average temperature, °C

decreased hardness values of the tube metal and development of oxide

600 scale on the inner surface of boiler tubes over prolonged period of time.

Hoop stress, MPa

30
Two failure cases in reheater and superheater tubes were evaluated.
590
Estimations obtained from the simulation were shown to be in
agreements with the actual data. Combination of estimating the life
580
expectancy using the cumulative creep damage, considering the
20
570 maximum allowable stresses and monitoring the increasing of
temperature in tube metal may provide an advanced warning to take
Temperature - Case 2
560 Temperature - Case 1
preventive actions prior to failure. A reciprocal casual of increasing
10 tube metal temperature and oxide scale growth in a hazardous envi-
Max. allowable stress (Case 2)
550 Max. allowable stress (Case 1) ronment of boiler operation would lead to tube leakage/rupture, by
Operational pressure, 4 MPa
which the safety and cost-effective of the thermal power plant is
Operational pressure, 10 MPa
540 0 influenced seriously. The ruptured boiler tubes in power plant generate
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000
a serious problem that often leads to unscheduled and costly outages.
Service hours

Fig. 9. Operational hoop and maximum allowable stresses of the failed tubes for Case 1 Acknowledgements
and Case 2 at the corresponding average tube temperatures and service hours.

This work is supported by the Ministry of Science Technology

have coalesced and dispersed uniformly as shown in Fig. 10. Similar
feature of the microstructure was also reported for Case 2.
The change of microstructure confirmed that the failed tube had
operated at higher temperature or experienced overheating for
prolonged period of time. It agrees with the estimation obtained
from the simulations.
Abnormal governing parameters clearly cause loss of expected life
due to microstructural changes and creep failures as result of over-
heating. Well-informed data for heat transfer parameters according
to variations in the operating conditions from the monitoring system
will improve estimations obtained from the iteration procedure. In
other words, better estimation of the average temperature in the tube
metal could be obtained, provided that all the heat transfer param-
eters used are well specified. Early warning of failure may be moni-
tored from time to time through simulations utilizing data of the
operational heat transfer parameters taken from the monitoring
devices. Regular measurements need to be taken, e.g. for months or
years, before a critical situation arises. It is expected that more
detailed evaluation can indicate the nature of the problem so that
rectification action can be planned.
Fig. 10. Complete stage of spheroidization with the coalesced carbide particles to form
chain of pores (Ahmad, 2004).
and Innovation, Malaysia through the research projects of IRPA
09-99-03-0033 EA001 and Sciencefund 04-02-03-SF0003. The
author wish to thank Universiti Tenaga Nasional and Kapar Energy
Ventures Sdn. Bhd for permission of utilizing all the facilities and
resources during this study.
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Please cite this article in press as: Purbolaksono, J., et al., Failure case studies of SA213-T22 steel tubes of boiler through computer simulations,
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2009.06.005