• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.180-185
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• 2001

In the life assessment for plant structural component, the research on deterioration of toughness and material properties occurred in weldments has been considered as very important problems. In general, the microstructures composed in weldments are hugely classified with weld metal(W.M), fusion line(F.L), heat affected zone(HAZ), and base metal(B.M). It has been reported that the creep characteristics on weldments having variable microstructures could be unpredictably changed. Furthermore, it is also known that HAZ adjacent to F.L exhibits the decreased creep strength compared to those in base or weld metals, and promotes the occurrence of Type III and Type IV cracking due to the growth of grains and the coarsening carbides precipitated in ferritic matrix by welding and PWHT processes. However, the lots of works reported up to date on creep damage in power plant components have been mostly conducted on B.M and the creep properties on a localized microstructures in weldments have not as yet been throughly investigated. In this paper, for various microstructures such as coarse grain HAZ(CGHAZ), W.M and B.M in X20CrMoV121 steel weldment, the small punch-creep(SP-Creep) test using miniaturized specimen(t=0.5mm, 0.25mm) is performed to investigate a possibility for creep characteristics evaluation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.1995-2001
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• 2001

In this study, a small punch creep(SP-Creep) test using miniaturized specimen(10${\times}$10${\times}$0.5mm) is described to develop the new creep test method for high temperature structural materials. The SP-Creep test is applied to 2.25Cr-lMo(STBA24) steel which is widely used as boiler tube material. The test temperatures applied for the creep deformation of miniaturized specimens are between 550∼600$^{\circ}C$. The SP-Creep curves depend definitely on applied load and creep temperature, and show the three stages of creep behavior like in conventional uniaxial tensile creep curves. The load exponent of miniaturized specimen decreases with increasing test temperature, and its behavior is similar to stress exponent behavior of uniaxial creep test. The creep activation energy obtained from the relationship between SP-Creep rate and test temperature decreases as the applied load increases. A predicting equation or SP-Creep rate for 2.25Cr-lMo steel is suggested. and a good agreement between experimental and calculated data has been found.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.55-60
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• 2002

For the development of a new creep test technique, the availability of SP-Creep test is discussed for 1Cr-0.5Mo boiler header material. And some results are also compared with those of 2.25Cr- 1Mo steel which widely uses as boiler superheater tube. The results can be summarized as follows. The load exponents(n) obtained by SP-Creep test for 1Cr-0.5Mo steel are decreased with increasing creep temperature and the values are 15.67, 13.89, and 17.13 at 550$^{circ}C$ ,575$^{circ}C$ and 600$^{circ}C$, respectively. The temperature dependence of the load exponent is given by n = 107.19 - 0.1108T. This reason that load exponents show the extensive range of 10∼16 is attributed to the fine carbide such as M$_{23}$C$_{6}$ in lath tempered martensitic structures. At the same creep condition, the secondary creep rate of 1Cr-0.5Mo steel is lower than the 2.25Cr-1Mo steel1 due to the strengthening microstructure composed by normalizing and tempering treatments. Through a SEM observation, it can be summarized that the primary, secondary, and tertiary creep regions of SP-Creep specimen are corresponding to plastic bending, plastic membrane stretching, and plastic instability regions among the deformation behavior of four steps in SP test, respectively.y.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.351-361
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• 2015

External reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) for in-vessel retention (IVR) has been considered one of the most useful strategies to mitigate severe accidents. However, reliability of this common idea is weakened because many studies were focused on critical heat flux whereas there were diverse uncertainties in structural behaviors as well as thermal-hydraulic phenomena. In the present study, several key factors related to molten corium behaviors and thermal characteristics were examined under multi-layered corium formation conditions. Thereafter, systematic finite element analyses and subsequent damage evaluation with varying parameters were performed on a representative reactor pressure vessel (RPV) to figure out the possibility of high temperature induced failures. From the sensitivity analyses, it was proven that the reactor cavity should be flooded up to the top of the metal layer at least for successful accomplishment of the IVR-ERVC strategy. The thermal flux due to corium formation and the relocation time were also identified as crucial parameters. Moreover, three-layered corium formation conditions led to higher maximum von Mises stress values and consequently shorter creep rupture times as well as higher damage factors of the RPV than those obtained from two-layered conditions.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.33-40
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• 2016

The microstructures and the creep rupture properties of dissimilar welds between the Ni-based superalloy Inconel 740H and the non-stabilized austenitic stainless steel TP316H have been characterized. The welds were produced by shielded metal arc (SMA) welding process with the AWS A5.11 Class ENiCrFe-3 filler metal, commonly known as Inconel 182 superalloy. Postweld heat treatment at $760^{\circ}C$ for 4 hours was conducted to form ${\gamma}^{\prime}$ strengthener in Inconel 740H. The austenitic weld metal produced by Inconel 182 had a dendritic microstructure, and grew epitaxially from the both sides of Inconel 740H and TP316H base metals. Since both Inconel 740H and TP316H did not undergo any solid-state transformation during welding process, there were no heat-affected-zone (HAZ) sub-regions and the coarsoned grains near the weld interface were limited to a narrow region. The hardness of Inconel 182 weld metal was ~220 Hv. The gradual hardness decrease was detected at HAZ of TP316H, and the TP316H base metal displayed the lowest hardness value (~180 Hv) whilst the Inconel 740H showed the highest hardness value (~400 Hv). Fracture after creep occurred at the center of weld metal, regardless of creep condition. It was found that during creep the cracks initiated and propagated along interdendritic regions and grain boundaries at which Laves particles enriched in Nb, Si and Cr were present. The appropriate design of weld metal was discussed to suppress the creep-induced cracking of the present dissimilar weld.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.121-129
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• 2022

Recently the growth of the renewable energy production has caused the flexible operation in LNG combined cycle power plant. Due to the rapid start and stop operations, large CrMoV castings used for turbine casings and valve bodies could be distorted and lead to replacement or welding repair. This study was performed to find out the characteristics of the repair welding for a damaged CrMoV casting steel. A typical field repair method (arc & TIG welding) was applied to making specimens. The degraded N2 packing head sample from the steam turbine was used. The evaluations of weldments were carried out in terms of microstructural characterization, microhardness measurements, tensile, creep-rupture and fatigue tests. Color etching was also applied for better understanding of welding microstructures. As the boundary between HAZ and base material was deteriorated by welding, it caused microstructural changes formed during PWHT and the shortening of the remaining residual life. By comparing the properties according to repair welding method, it was possible to derive what important welding factors were. As a result, arc welding method is more suitable for repair welding on CrMoV castings.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2010

The low alloy-steel material(1.0Cr-0.5Mo, SA213T12), which has widely been used for the waterwall tube in the conventional power plant, do not have enough creep rupture strength for waterwall tubes of the Ultra-supercritical(USC) boilers. According to this reason, the high-strength low alloy-steel(2.25Cr-1.0Mo, SA213T22) has newly been adopted for the waterwall tube in the USC boilers. This paper presents failure analysis on weld-joint of the waterwall tubes in USC boilers. Visual inspections were performed to find out the characteristics of the fracture. Additionally both microscopic characteristics and hardness test were carried out on failed tube samples. Failures seem to happen mainly because the welding process has not been conducted strictly.(preheating, P.W.H.T and so forth). Thus, this paper has the purpose to describe the main cause of the poor welding process and to explain how to prevent similar failures in those weld-joints.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.30-36
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• 2015

Austenite stainless steel(SA213-TP347H) has widely been used for the superheater & reheater tube in USC(ultra-supercritica) coal boiler because of its high creep rupture strength and anti-oxidation. But recently, the short-term failures have happened frequently in heat affected zone for only 4,000~15,000hours of service. Many investigations have been conducted to understand the failure mechanism. The root cause of failure was comfirmed to "strain induce participation hardening crack" or "reheat cracking". This mechanism often occurred due to weld residual stress and precipitation of the Cr, Nb carbides in the stabilized stainless steel such as TP347H. This paper presents an analysis of failure tube and effect of the sample tubes that conducting stabilizing heat treatment in site after 11,380hours & 16,961hours of service. Visual inspection was performed. In addition, microscopic characteristics was identified by O.M, SEM, and hardness test was carried out to find out the heat treatment effects. Failures seem to happen because of being not conducted stabilizing heat treatment in site. And another cause is inadequate weld parameter such as pass, ampere, voltage, inter-pass temperature. Thus, this paper has the purpose to describe that how to prevent similar failures in those weld-joints.