Nuclear Engineering and Technology 56 (2024) 1e8

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Nuclear Engineering and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/net

Original Article

Thermal aging of Gr. 91 steel in supercritical thermal plant and its

effect on structural integrity at elevated temperature
Min-Gu Won a, Si-Hwa Jeong a, Nam-Su Huh b, *, Woo-Gon Kim c, Hyeong-Yeon Lee a
a
Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 111 Daedeok-daero 989 beon-gil, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34057, Republic of Korea
b
Department of Mechanical System Design Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul, 01811,
Republic of Korea
c
Korea Energy Technology Group, Techno 4-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34014, Republic of Korea

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

Article history: In this study, the influence of thermal aging on structural integrity is investigated for Gr. 91 steel. A
Received 18 November 2022 commercial grade Gr. 91 steel is used for the virgin material, and service-exposed Gr. 91 steel is sampled
Received in revised form from a steam pipe of a super critical plant. Time versus creep strain curves are obtained through creep
4 July 2023
tests with various stress levels at 600
C for the virgin and service-exposed Gr. 91 steels, respectively.
Accepted 7 July 2023
Available online 8 July 2023
Based on the creep test results, the improved Omega model is characterized for describing the total creep
strain curve for both Gr. 91 steels. The proposed parameters for creep deformation model are used for
predicting the steady-state creep strain rate, creep rupture curve, and stress relaxation. Creep-fatigue
Keywords:
Creep deformation
damage is evaluated for the intermediate heat exchanger (IHX) in a large-scale sodium test facility of
Creep-fatigue damage STELLA-2 by using creep deformation model with proposed creep parameters and creep rupture curve
Creep rupture stress for both Gr. 91 steels. Based on the comparison results of creep fatigue damage for the virgin and service-
Gr. 91 steel exposed Gr. 91 steels, the thermal aging effect has been shown to be significant.
Thermal aging © 2023 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the
CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction conducted various studies to predict the lifetime due to creep-

In an elevated temperature service condition, steel exhibits
micro-structural changes that affect its mechanical properties [1].
This is called thermal aging and is an ongoing issue for various steel
components. In general, thermal aging degrades the ductility and
toughness of the steel and is accumulated over time [2]. Thermal
aging thus significantly reduces the design life of long-term
exposed material. In order to consider thermal aging in a struc-
tural integrity evaluation, the material properties should be ob-
tained for the service-exposed material that is exposed to actual
service conditions. However, it is difficult to conduct experiments
under actual service conditions. Many researchers thus perform
experiments under assumed specific conditions and predict ma-
terial behavior for actual service conditions [3e6].
Another critical failure mode under an elevated temperature
service condition is creep, which induces time dependent defor-
mation under constant loading. Creep, by interacting with fatigue,
has a negative impact on structural integrity, and many researchers
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nam-su.huh@seoultech.ac.kr (N.-S. Huh).
fatigue damage [7e9]. Because high thermal stress induces signif-
icant creep damage, the material should have excellent properties
for heat resistance. Modified 9Cre1Mo (ASME Grade 91, hereafter
Gr. 91) steel meets the requirements for high-temperature mate-
rials [5] and is a promising candidate material for the next gener-
ation nuclear power plant, GEN-IV. ASME and RCC-MRx codes
provide the material properties for Gr. 91 steel and detailed eval-
uation procedure for the high temperature failure modes [10,11].
However, because of the absence of material properties for aged
materials, evaluation procedures only can be applied to virgin
materials. To consider the thermal aging effect on the creep dam-
age, not only elastic material properties but also creep material
properties should be prepared for thermally aged materials. For
material's tensile properties, some studies were carried out for aged
Gr. 91 steel to obtain the yield stress, tensile stress, and elastic
modulus [4,5,12,13]. A creep deformation model and creep rupture
stress curve are required for the creep damage, but the body of
research is not sufficient to cover the temperature range practically
[14e16].
In the present study, the thermal aging effect on creep proper-
ties is investigated for Gr. 91 steel. Service-exposed Gr. 91 steel is

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.net.2023.07.011
1738-5733/© 2023 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
M.-G. Won, S.-H. Jeong, N.-S. Huh et al. Nuclear Engineering and Technology 56 (2024) 1e8

Nomenclature

ai Material coefficients for Pi parameter

A Correction factor of power-law relation
bi Material coefficients for Pi parameter
n Creep exponent of power-law relation
P1 Parameter of Imp. Omega model
P2 Parameter of Imp. Omega model
P3 Parameter of Imp. Omega model
P4 Parameter of Imp. Omega model
t Time in hour
tr Creep rupture time
εc Creep strain
ε_ c Creep strain rate
s Stress, general Fig. 1. Uniaxial creep tensile test specimen geometry.

prepared from a steam pipe in a super critical plant that has

operated under a high-temperature condition for 8.4 years at
569
C. Creep tests are performed for both virgin and service-
exposed Gr. 91 steels with various constant stress levels. The
form of Imp. Omega model is employed and a creep deformation
model and parameters are developed based on experimental re-
sults. By using the proposed parameters for creep deformation
model for the virgin and service-exposed Gr. 91 steels, the steady-
state creep strain rate, creep rupture stress, and stress relaxation
are predicted by using analytical and numerical methods. Lastly, in
order to analyze the aging effect on creep-fatigue damage, creep-
fatigue damage is evaluated for the intermediate heat exchanger
(IHX) in a large-scale sodium test facility of STELLA-2 by using the
proposed creep material properties in this study.

2. Creep deformation curve

2.1. Creep test

For the virgin Gr. 91 steel, a commercial grade hot-rolled Gr. 91

steel plate is used and the chemical composition is listed in Table 1
[17]. The service-exposed Gr. 91 steel is prepared from “the reheat
steam pipe of tee fitting in super critical plant”, which is service-
exposed for 73,716 h (8.4 year) under the steady state operating
temperature of 569
C and operating pressure of 4.67 MPa [18]. The
cylindrical shaped specimen with 30 mm gauge length is prepared
for all creep tensile tests, as illustrated in Fig. 1. For the virgin Gr. 91
steel, the creep tests are conducted at 600
C under five constant
stresses of 140, 150, 160, 180, and 200 MPa. For the service-exposed
Gr. 91 steel, the creep tests are performed at 600
C under six
constant stresses of 100, 110, 120, 130, 150, and 180 MPa. Fig. 2
shows the creep test results for the virgin and service-exposed
Gr. 91 steel. A Comparison of the creep test results of the virgin
and service exposed Gr. 91 steel is demonstrated in Section 3 along
with the creep behavior prediction.

2.2. Creep deformation model Fig. 2. Creep strain versus time curves for Gr. 91 steel at 600
C: (a) virgin Gr. 91 (b)
service-exposed Gr. 91.

To describe the total creep strain (i.e., primary, secondary, and

Table 1
Chemical composition of Gr. 91 steel.

Grade (Code) C Mn P S Si Cr Ni Mo V Cb N Al

Gr. 91 0.08 0.38 0.018 0.003 0.34 8.75 0.29 0.875 0.242 0.079 0.038 0.014

2
M.-G. Won, S.-H. Jeong, N.-S. Huh et al. Nuclear Engineering and Technology 56 (2024) 1e8

tertiary), the Imp. Omega model [17] is employed in this study. The Table 2
Imp. Omega model has 2 U terms and can be expressed as follows: Material coefficients of Imp. Omega creep model for the virgin Gr. 91 steel at
600
C.

εc ¼ P1 lnð1 þ P2 tÞ  P3 lnð1  P4 tÞ (1) Pi ai bi

P1 4.5328 0.0255
logðPi Þ ¼ ai þ bi s (2) P2 3.3814 0.0081
P3 0.108 2.16E-04
P4 7.6237 0.0272
where t denotes the time in hours and s is the applied stress in
MPa. P1, P2, P3, and P4 are material parameters for describing a creep
deformation curve. Note that the Imp. Omega model does not have
Table 3
a term for secondary creep stage. The first omega term of Eq. (1)
Material coefficients of Imp. Omega creep model for the service-exposed Gr. 91
describes the primary creep strain, and the second omega term steel at 600
C.
represents the secondary-tertiary creep strain. In particular, the P4
Pi ai bi
parameter of the second omega term indicates the creep rupture
time. As depicted in Fig. 3, the P1, P2, P3, and P4 parameters show a P1 1.2312 1.85E-03
linear relation with stress in log-log scale. Therefore, the Pi P2 10.078 0.0726
P3 0.4963 1.45E-03
parameter can be defined as given in Eq. (2). P4 5.2149 0.0234
From the creep tests, the Imp. Omega model is characterized for
the virgin and service-exposed Gr. 91 steels at 600
C. The resulting
values of the P1, P2, P3, and P4 parameters are summarized in
3. Creep behavior prediction
Tables 2 and 3 and Fig. 3. The comparison results of the Imp. Omega
model with the experimental data are shown in Fig. 4. The Imp.
Creep test results and creep deformation model are used for
Omega model gives overall good predictions for the virgin and the
creep behavior prediction, as summarized in Fig. 5. Steady state
service-exposed Gr. 91 steels.

Fig. 3. Stress dependence results of Pi parameters for Imp. Omega model: (a) virgin Gr. Fig. 4. Comparison of the characterized Imp. Omega model results with experiment
91 (b) service-exposed Gr. 91. results for Gr. 91 steel at 600
C: (a) virgin Gr. 91 (b) service-exposed Gr. 91.

3
M.-G. Won, S.-H. Jeong, N.-S. Huh et al. Nuclear Engineering and Technology 56 (2024) 1e8

creep strain rates for virgin and service exposed Gr. 91 steel are
proposed from the creep test results. From the Imp. Omega model
with proposed creep parameters, stress relaxation curve and creep
rupture stress curve are predicted.
3.3. Stress relaxation curve
Elastic-creep finite element analyses are carried out to obtain
the stress relaxation curve and the results are compared with the
experimental data. As illustrated in Fig. 9, the test specimens for

3.1. Steady state creep strain rate

As described in Eq. (1), the Imp. Omega model does not include
the term for the steady-state creep strain rate. Hence, a simple
power law relation is used as follows:

ε_c ¼ Asn (3)

where A and n are the correction factor and creep exponent, which
are determined by characterizing creep test results. In Fig. 6, the
steady-state creep strain rates are compared for the virgin and
service-exposed Gr. 91 steels. Although the service-exposed Gr. 91
presents a lower creep exponent (n), the steady-state creep strain
rate of the service-exposed material is higher than that of the virgin
material. The reason for this is a large creep strain caused by
thermal aging.

3.2. Creep rupture stress curve Fig. 6. Steady-state creep strain rate results for Gr. 91 steel at 600
C.

From the characterized creep model, creep rupture stress curves

are predicted. In Eq. (1), the first omega term becomes negligible
with increasing time. Thus, creep rupture occurs when the second
omega term of Eq. (1) becomes infinity [17]. The creep rupture time
under constant stress can be expressed as follows:

1
tr ¼ (4)
P4

where tr denotes the creep rupture time. In Fig. 7, the predicted

creep rupture stress curves are compared with the experimental
results for the virgin and service-exposed Gr. 91 steels. Both creep
rupture stress curves show good agreement with the experimental
results.
Furthermore, creep rupture curves, which are provided in RCC-
MRx and ASME codes, are also summarized with a dash line in
Fig. 8. For the virgin Gr. 91 steel, the creep rupture curves are similar
to the average rupture curve of RCC-MRx code, but it is less con- Fig. 7. Comparison of the predicted creep rupture stress curve of Imp. Omega model
servative than the minimum rupture curve of RCC-MRx and ASME results with experiment results for Gr. 91 steel at 600
C.
codes, which are actually used in creep damage evaluation. On the
other hand, the creep rupture stress curve of service-exposed Gr. 91
steel is 36% lower than that of virgin Gr. 91 steel and is the most
conservative. As expected, thermal aging degrades the creep
rupture strength, which causes a reduction of service life.

Fig. 5. Procedure of creep behavior prediction of virgin and service-exposed Gr. 91 Fig. 8. Comparison of the predicted creep rupture stress curve of Imp. Omega model
steel. results with engineering codes for Gr. 91 steel at 600
C.

4
M.-G. Won, S.-H. Jeong, N.-S. Huh et al.
stress relaxation are considered and the strain is fixed at 0.6% for all
FE and experimental conditions [19]. The general-purpose FE
software, ABAQUS [20] is used and the FE mesh is prepared for the
gauge length section of the stress relaxation specimen, as depicted
in Fig. 10. Half axisymmetric model is prepared with reduce inte-
gration 4-nodes axisymmetric elements (CAX4R in ABAQUS
element library). In order to apply the characterized Imp. Omega
model to the FE analysis, CREEP subroutine modules are developed
for both Gr. 91 steels. Furthermore, FE analyses are conducted by
using the CREEP subroutine module for the creep deformation
model of Gr. 91 steel provided in RCC-MRx code [21]. On the other
hand, ASME code does not provide a creep strain model and the
stress relaxation curve is obtained by using an isochronous curve.
The resulting stress relaxation curve results are depicted in Fig. 11.
Because of the different types of boundary condition and
applied loading between the creep test (load-controlled) and the
stress relaxation test (displacement-controlled), error may arise in
the predicted stress relaxation curve with the creep deformation
models. Accordingly, many studies use a special constitutive model
for predicting stress relaxation curves [19,22]. In this study, the
conservatism of each model is compared rather than the predict-
ability of stress relaxation. Since the service-exposed Gr. 91 steel
produces more creep deformation than that of the virgin steel at
the same stress level, the service-exposed Gr. 91 steel has more
stress relaxation. RCC-MRx code shows the lowest stress relaxation
curve, and this indicates that RCC-MRx code produces the large
creep strain compared to the actual experiment results [23,24].
Because the evaluation method of ASME code, which use an
isochronous curve, provide conservative results [25,26], ASME code
presents the highest stress relaxation curve.
4. Applications to a high-temperature heat exchanger
Creep damage is an important design criterion for high tem-
perature components, such as GEN-IV reactors. Sodium-cooled Fast
Reactor, SFR is one of the GEN-IV reactors and its design life is 60
years. Thus, SFR components are exposed to high temperature
environment for a long time, and it is expected that the structural
integrity of SFR components will be highly degraded due to thermal
aging. However, RCC-MRx code does not provide procedure and
method for thermal aging, and this may cause non-conservative
design. In this study, creep properties are proposed for Gr. 91
steel exposed to high temperature for 8.4 years, and this exposure
time is less than 15% of SFR design life. By evaluating and comparing
the creep damage results for both service-exposed and virgin Gr. 91
steels, not only the thermal effect on creep damage but also the risk
of non-conservative design according to RCC-MRx are investigated.
The present approaches on creep properties, creep deformation
model and creep rupture stress have been applied to a practical
heat exchanger in a large-scale sodium test facility shown in Fig. 12,
constructed and currently under operation at KAERI (Korea Atomic
Energy Research Institute). The creep-fatigue damage is evaluated
for the intermediate heat exchanger (IHX) in the STELLA-2 test fa-
cility. The load combination for normal operating condition is
considered, which includes dead weight, nozzle load, inner pres-
sure, and temperature distribution due to sodium coolant. Dead
Fig. 9. Stress relaxation tests specimen geometry (unit: mm) [19].
5
Nuclear Engineering and Technology 56 (2024) 1e8
Fig. 10. Half-axisymmetric FE model for the gauge length section of the stress relax-
ation specimen.
Fig. 11. Comparison results of stress relaxation curve for Gr. 91 steel.
weight of IHX and sodium coolant is considered, and an imposed
nozzle load is applied to the IHX top and side tube. The primary and
secondary sodium flows for IHX, which induces a temperature
distribution and thermal stress, are summarized in Fig. 13. The
cooled secondary sodium with 320
C enters the IHX tube side and
it is heated to 600
C by heat exchanger with the primary sodium.
On the other hand, the primary sodium is cooled from 600
C to
390
C by heat exchanging with the secondary sodium. The tran-
sients of primary and secondary sodium consist of three steps,
heat-up (5 h), steady-state (150 h), and cool-down (3.5 h), and they
are plotted in Fig. 14.
Thermal and structural elastic analyses are carried out to esti-
mate primary and secondary stresses. As depicted in Fig. 15, the
location of the maximum stress is on the side tube for the sec-
ondary sodium outlet, and primary and secondary stresses are
obtained for that point. The creep-fatigue damage is evaluated by
using the HITEP_RCC-DBA program, which is developed based on
RCC-MRx Sec. III, RB-3200 [27]. As shown in Fig. 16, proposed creep
deformation properties and creep rupture stress curve are used in
the procedure of creep fatigue damage evaluation, instead of those
provided in RCC-MRx code. The steady-state transient is considered
for the creep-fatigue damage with steady state temperature of
600
C, and the total creep-fatigue load cycles during lifetime of the
IHX is 500 times.
In Fig. 17, the creep-fatigue damage results are summarized for
the virgin and service-exposed Gr. 91 steels. Since the creep-fatigue
damage point of the virgin Gr. 91 steel is located under the creep-
fatigue interaction, the creep-fatigue damage assessment is satis-
fied. On the other hand, the fatigue and creep damage of the
service-exposed Gr. 91 steel highly increase respectively and the
assessment point is located over the creep-fatigue interaction.
Although the service-exposed Gr. 91 steel is affected by thermal
aging for a short time (8.4 years) compared to the SFR design life,
the creep-fatigue damage increased significantly. Furthermore,
since thermal aging and creep damage are accumulated over time,
higher creep-fatigue damage can be estimated when the full design
lifetime of SFR is considered. This accumulative thermal aging ef-
fect is not considered in RCC-MRx code. This implies that the
conventional structural design based on RCC-MRx code may
include risk of non-conservative design.
M.-G. Won, S.-H. Jeong, N.-S. Huh et al. Nuclear Engineering and Technology 56 (2024) 1e8

Fig. 12. A large-scale test facility of the STELLA-2.

Fig. 14. Temperature transients for primary and secondary sodium.

Fig. 13. Primary and secondary flow for IHX in STELLA-2 test loop.

5. Concluding remarks

In the present paper, the thermal aging effect on creep behavior Fig. 15. Weakest point of the intermediate heat exchanger (IHX) in the STELLA-2
facility.
is investigated for Gr. 91 steel. The service-exposed Gr. 91 steel is

6
M.-G. Won, S.-H. Jeong, N.-S. Huh et al.
Fig. 16. Creep-Fatigue Damage evaluation procedure of RCC-MRx code.
Fig. 17. Comparison of creep-fatigue damage results for Gr. 91 steel.
prepared from a reheat steam pipe in a supercritical plant under
73,716 h at 569
C. The creep tests are performed for the virgin and
service-exposed Gr. 91 steels. The Imp. Omega creep deformation
model is employed and characterized based on the creep test re-
sults. The steady-state creep strain rate is proposed by using a
power-law form equation. Furthermore, the creep rupture stress
and stress relaxation curve are predicted by using the characterized
Imp. Omega model.
As expected, thermal aging induces large creep strain with a
high steady-state creep strain rate. Creep rupture stress of the
service-exposed Gr. 91 steel is reduced compared to the virgin Gr.
91 steel. Due to the large creep strain caused by thermal aging, the
stress is relaxed more under a strain-controlled condition.
Furthermore, creep-fatigue damage is evaluated for an intermedi-
ate heat-exchanger in a STELLA-2 test facility by using the creep
properties, and the damage of the service-exposed Gr. 91 steel in-
creases significantly. Therefore, thermal aging degrades the creep
strength of the material and induces high creep-fatigue damage.
Although the Gr. 91 steel is exposed to thermal aging for a short
period of time (8.4 years) compared to the operating time of the
SFR, creep-fatigue damage increases significantly. Therefore, ther-
mal aging should be considered in the design phase for high-
temperature nuclear reactors, such as the SFR components which
7
Nuclear Engineering and Technology 56 (2024) 1e8
has long design life of over 60 years.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the International Research &
Development Program of the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Plan-
ning (2019K1A3A7A03113575, 2021K1A3A1A78097845 and
2021R1l1A2057941).
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