Development of Guideline for Prediction of Inelastic Strain for Creep-Fatigue Evaluation

Author(s):  
Osamu Watanabe ◽  
Ken-ichi Kobayashi ◽  
Kyotada Nakamura

Cyclic thermal and mechanical loads are frequently applied to power plants during their service lives due to the regular operation of start-up and shutdown. Design or actual lives of these high temperature machines and structures have been mainly dominated by the creep-fatigue failure life. Since most of these failures happen at limited local area, namely, it may happen at the geometrical or material discontinuities in structures or components, the detail inelastic analyses with a conservative margin are required at the design and maintenance. However, much time and colossal effort should be avoided at the stage of development to reduce the total cost of designing because the design changes many times until the final configuration is fixed. Many materials in the high temperature components are subjected to inelastic behaviors; plastic or creep strain always cause in the components. In the computational analyses such as Finite Element Analyses, constitutive equations of both plasticity and creep affect analytical results. Neuber’s rule is employed in the present design code to achieve the simplified design of component but its result sometimes provides more conservative margin. Stress Redistribution Locus (Hereinafter denoted as SRL) method is a simplified inelastic analysis and was developed in Japan. ETD committee in HPI has studied its applicability to basic problems and actual components.

Author(s):  
Felix Koelzow ◽  
Muhammad Mohsin Khan ◽  
Christian Kontermann ◽  
Matthias Oechsner

Abstract Several (accumulative) lifetime models were developed to assess the lifetime consumption of high-temperature components of steam and gas turbine power plants during flexible operation modes. These accumulative methods have several drawbacks, e.g. that measured loading profiles cannot be used within accumulative lifetime methods without manual corrections, and cannot be combined directly to sophisticated probabilistic methods. Although these methods are widely accepted and used for years, the accumulative lifetime prediction procedures need improvement regarding the lifetime consumption of thermal power plants during flexible operation modes. Furthermore, previous investigations show that the main influencing factor from the materials perspective, the critical damage threshold, cannot be statistically estimated from typical creep-fatigue experiments due to massive experimental effort and a low amount of available data. This paper seeks to investigate simple damage mechanics concepts applied to high-temperature components under creep-fatigue loading to demonstrate that these methods can overcome some drawbacks and use improvement potentials of traditional accumulative lifetime methods. Furthermore, damage mechanics models do not provide any reliability information, and the assessment of the resultant lifetime prediction is nearly impossible. At this point, probabilistic methods are used to quantify the missing information concerning failure probabilities and sensitivities and thus, the combination of both provides rigorous information for engineering judgment. Nearly 50 low cycle fatigue experiments of a high chromium cast steel, including dwell times and service-type cycles, are used to investigate the model properties of a simple damage evolution equation using the strain equivalence hypothesis. Furthermore, different temperatures from 300 °C to 625 °C and different strain ranges from 0.35% to 2% were applied during the experiments. The determination of the specimen stiffness allows a quantification of the damage evolution during the experiment. The model parameters are determined by Nelder-Mead optimization procedure, and the dependencies of the model parameters concerning to different temperatures and strain ranges are investigated. In this paper, polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) is used for uncertainty propagation of the model uncertainties while using non-intrusive methods (regression techniques). In a further post-processing step, the computed PCE coefficients of the damage variable are used to determine the probability of failure as a function of cycles and evolution of the probability density function (pdf). Except for the selected damage mechanics model which is considered simple, the advantages of using damage mechanics concepts combined with sophisticated probabilistic methods are presented in this paper.


Author(s):  
Wen Wang ◽  
Xiaochun Zhang ◽  
Xiaoyan Wang ◽  
Maoyuan Cai

Abstract The structural integrity of reactor components is very essential for the reliable operation of all types of power plants, especially for components operating at elevated temperature where creep effects are significant and where components are subjected to high-temperature alteration and seismic transient loading conditions. In this article, a molten salt storage tank in high temperature thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) is evaluated according to ASME-III-5-HBB high temperature reactor code. The evaluation based on 3D finite element analyses includes the load-controlled stress, the effects of ratcheting, and the interaction of creep and fatigue. The thermal and structural analysis and the application procedures of ASME-HBB rules are described in detail. Some structural modifications have been made on this molten salt storage tank to enhance the strength and reduce thermal stress. The effects of ratcheting and creep-fatigue damage under elevated temperature are investigated using elastic analysis and inelastic analysis methods for a defined representative load cycle. In addition, the strain range and the stress relaxation history calculated by elastic and inelastic methods are compared and discussed. The numerical results indicate that the elastic analysis is conservative for design and a full inelastic analysis method for estimating input for creep-fatigue damage evaluation need to be developed.


2000 ◽  
Vol 122 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Viswanathan ◽  
J. Stringer

The principal mechanisms of failure of high temperature components include creep, fatigue, creep-fatigue, and thermal fatigue. In heavy section components, although cracks may initiate and grow by these mechanisms, ultimate failure may occur at low temperatures during startup-shutdown transients. Hence, fracture toughness is also a key consideration. Considerable advances have been made both with respect to crack initiation and crack growth by the above mechanisms. Applying laboratory data to predict component life has often been thwarted by inability to simulate actual stresses, strain cycles, section size effects, environmental effects, and long term degradation effects. This paper will provide a broad perspective on the failure mechanisms and life prediction methods and their significance in the context utility deregulation. [S0094-4289(00)00103-1]


Author(s):  
Susumu Terada ◽  
Masato Yamada ◽  
Tomoaki Nakanishi

9Cr-1Mo-V steels (Gr. 91), which has an excellent performance at high temperature in mechanical properties and hydrogen resistance, has been used for tubing and piping materials in power industries and it can be a candidate material for high pressure vessels for high temperature processes in refining industries. The current Section VIII Division 2 of ASME code does not permit method A of paragraph 5.5.2.3 to be used for the exemption from fatigue analysis for Gr. 91 steels due to limitation of specified minimum tensile strength (585 MPa > 552 MPa). Method B of paragraph 5.5.2.4 also can’t be used because it requires the use of the fatigue curve which is limited to 371 °C lower than the needed temperature. Therefore new rules for fatigue evaluation of Gr. 91 steels at temperatures greater than 371 °C and less than 500 °C similar to CC 2605 for 2.25Cr-1Mo-0.25V(Gr. 22V) steels are necessary. This paper provides fatigue test results at 500 °C for Gr. 91 steels, the modification of CC 2605, sample inelastic analysis results for nozzles. Then, the new Code Case for Gr. 91 steels is proposed from these results.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. C. Messner ◽  
T.-L. Sham

Abstract The rules for the design of high temperature reactor components in Section III, Division 5, Subsection HB, Subpart B (HBB) of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code contain two options for evaluating the deformation-controlled design limits on strain accumulation and creep-fatigue: design by elastic analysis and design by inelastic analysis. Of these options design by inelastic analysis tends to be less overconservative and produce more efficient designs. However, the HBB currently does not provide approved material models for use with the inelastic analysis rules, limiting their widespread use. A nonmandatory appendix has been developed to provide general guidance on appropriate material models and provide reference material models suitable for use with the design by inelastic analysis approach. This paper describes a viscoplastic model for Alloy 617 suitable for use with the HBB rules proposed for incorporation into the new appendix. The model represents the high temperature creep, creep-fatigue, and tensile response of Alloy 617 and accurately accounts for rate sensitivity across a wide range of temperatures. The focus in developing the model was on capturing key features of material deformation required for accurately executing the HBB rules and on developing a relatively simple model form that can be implemented in commercial finite element analysis software. The paper validates the model against an extensive experimental database collected as part of the Alloy 617 Code qualification effort as well as against specialized experimental tests examining the effect of elastic follow up on stress relaxation and creep deformation in the material.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Bennett

The design approach and results from a series of analyses used to select a miniature high-temperature multi-watt refrigerator for thermally protecting downhole instruments are described. Thirty-one systems from nine physical or chemical processes were investigated and compared against the design criteria and constraints. Preliminary thermodynamic analyses and the results of a search for high-temperature components and refrigerants eliminated all but three processes and seven systems. These seven systems were re-evaluated based on a set of proposed design changes that reflect natural evolution from a prototype to commercial system application. Final selection considered refrigerator interactions with the geothermal logging system to define failure modes, ensure compatibility, and allow adaptability to changing conditions. The selected refrigerator design permits reliable, long-term active cooling of downhole instruments in hot wells. The consistent design, systematic analysis and unbiased selection process represent a new body of research results that provide potential for substantial advances in downhole thermal protection technology.


Author(s):  
Peter Carter ◽  
T.-L. (Sam) Sham ◽  
Robert I. Jetter

Proposals for high temperature design methods have been developed for primary loads, creep-fatigue and strain limits. The methodologies rely on a common basis and assumption, that elastic, perfectly plastic analysis based on appropriate properties reflects the ability of loads and stress to redistribute for steady and cyclic loading for high temperature as well as for conventional design. The cyclic load design analyses rely on a further key property, that a cyclic elastic-plastic solution provides an upper bound to displacements, strains and local damage rates. The primary load analysis ensures that the design load is in equilibrium with the code allowable stress, taking into account: i) The stress state dependent (multi-axial) rupture criterion, ii) The limit to stress re-distribution defined by the material creep law. The creep-fatigue analysis is focused on the cyclic creep damage calculation, and uses conventional fatigue and creep-fatigue damage calculations. It uses a temperature-dependent pseudo “yield” stress defined by the material yield and rupture data to identify cycles which will not cause creep damage > 1 for the selected life. Similarly the strain limits analysis bounds cyclic strain accumulation. It also uses a temperature-dependent pseudo “yield” stress defined by the material yield and creep strain accumulation data to identify cycles which will not cause average (membrane) inelastic strain > 1% for the design life. The paper gives an overview of the background and justification of these statements, and examples.


Author(s):  
Balhassn S. M. Ali

Most of the large components in the thermal, traditional and nuclear power plants such as pressurized vessels and pipes are operating at elevated temperatures. These temperatures and stress are high enough for creep to occur. For variety of reasons many of these power plants are now operating beyond their design life time. It is -known fact that as the high temperature components aged the failure rate normally increases as a result of their time dependent material damage. Further running of these components may become un-safe and dangerous in some cases. Therefore, creep assessment of the high temperature components of these plants is essential for their safe operation. Mainly for economic reasons these components have to be creep assessed as they are in service. However, assessing the creep strength for these high temperature components as they are in service, it can be challenging task, especially when these components are operating under extremely high temperature and/or stress. This paper introduces newly invented, small creep test specimens techniques. These new small types of specimens can be used to assess the remaining life times for the high temperature components, using only small material samples. These small material samples can be removed from the operating components surface, without affecting their safe operation. Two of the high temperature materials are used to validate the new testing techniques.


Author(s):  
Vaclav Mentl ◽  
Va´clav Lisˇka ◽  
Jaroslav Koc ◽  
Michal Chocholousˇek

The energy producing power plants are designed for operational period of 20, 30 years. During this period, inspections are realized to investigate the operational capability of the respective components and the plant as a whole, and when the designed time is approaching its limit, the crucial questions are raised with respect to the following possible operation, its safety and risks that stem from the fact that the continuous degradation of material properties occured during the longtime service as a result of service conditions, e.g. high temperatures, fatigue loading etc. The inspection of the boiler and the assessment of its future operational capability should ensure the safe operation and minimazing the failure risks. In comparison with the more sofisticated and much more expensive methods that use numbers of variables that enter the evaluation process of the lifetime exhaustion, or the metallographic non-destructive or even destructive methods that do not result often in a quantitative lifetime assessment, a relatively simple assessment method was used to evaluate the remaining lifetime of the high temperature components. On the basis of accelerated creep test data performed on the degraded materials, the remaining lifetime hours were calculated for the three “safety” situations: 1. “ZERO SAFETY” (neither recommended k = 1, 5 safety coefficient for working stress nor +70deg Celsius increase of working temperature were taken into consideration). 2. “STRESS SAFETY” (1, 5 safety coefficient for working stress and working temperature were taken into consideration). 3. “FULL SAFETY” (1, 5 safety coefficient for working stress and working temperature +70 deg Celsius were taken into consideration). This paper summarizes the results of remaining lifetime calculation for three different cases of steam boilers inspected after longtime service by Skoda Research ltd. Recently. On the basis of performed examination, the results provided the customer the recommendations relating the future safe and reliable operation.


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