There exists strong environmental and economic pressure to increase the thermal efficiency
of fossil fuel power stations and this has led to a steady increase in operating temperature and pressure
resulting in the world wide construction plans for ultra super-critical power plants. Consequently, in
order to improve the thermal efficiency of power plant, there has been a strong drive to develop more
advanced heat resistant steels with excellent creep, high temperature fatigue and thermal fatigue
resistant properties as well as superior oxidation and corrosion resistant properties. In this study, the
test material was P122 alloy which was developed for ultra super-critical power plant. To measure the
fatigue crack growth rate in low #K range, fatigue tests were performed on the P122 alloy welds by
#K decreasing method at three different microstructure (Base metal, HAZ, Weld metal) regions.
Microstructure observation and micro-hardness tests performed for all three regions to find the
relationship among the crack growth rate, microstructure and hardness. Fatigue tests were performed
with compact tension specimens at 600°C, 650°C and 700°C at the loading frequency of 20Hz.
Fatigue Crack Growth Studies on Power Plant Piping Materials under Corrosive Environment