Thermal power plants and refineries around the world share many of the same problems, namely aging equipment, high costs of replacement, and the need to produce more efficiently while being increasingly concerned with issues of safety and reliability. For equipment operating at high temperature, there are many different mechanisms of degradation, some of which interact, and the rate of accumulation of damage is not simple to predict. The paper discusses the mechanisms of degradation at high temperature and methods of assessment of such damage and of the remaining safe life for operation.

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A creep life consumption study was conducted in a high-pressure turbine rotor belonging to a 363 MW thermal power plant. The component is manufactured with 30CrMoV412 steel, which is a typical 1CrMoV forged rotor steel, having operated for 112,000 h, under a pressure of 17.6 MPa and temperature of 520°C. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the applicability of hardness tests as a tool for structural integrity analysis in the field. Two methods for estimating creep remaining life based on hardness measurements were used. Furthermore, metallographic replicas made during unit shutdown were observed by scanning electron microscopy, in order to detect creep voids and also to corroborate the results for accumulated creep damage obtained based on hardness measurements.

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This article discusses the problem of graphitization that can occur in carbon steels exposed to high temperature for extended time when these are present in pressure vessels and piping. Several case studies are described dealing with actual failures that have been investigated by the authors.

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