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Life assessment and maintenance of welded piping operating at high

temperatures
Pohja, Rami; Tuurna, Satu; Hakala, Timo J.; Auerkari, Pertti; McNiven, Ulla; Laaksonen,
Leila; Nikkarila, Reino
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Baltica XI

Published: 01/01/2019

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Pohja, R., Tuurna, S., Hakala, T. J., Auerkari, P., McNiven, U., Laaksonen, L., & Nikkarila, R. (2019). Life
assessment and maintenance of welded piping operating at high temperatures. In Baltica XI: International
Conference on Life Management and Maintenance for Power Plants VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

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Download date: 23. May. 2021

 Life assessment and maintenance of welded piping
operating at high temperatures
Rami Pohja1, Satu Tuurna1, Timo Hakala1, Pertti Auerkari1, Ulla McNiven2, Leila Laaksonen2, Reino
Nikkarila3
1VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd
Espoo and Tampere, Finland
2Fortum eNext, Fortum Power and Heat Oy
Jyväskylä and Naantali, Finland
3Replico

Majavesi, Finland

Abstract

Well before the end of life, the condition of aging hot end components will be of repeated interest in operating
thermal power and process plants. At their severe service environments, the components will by design face
a combination of life-limiting degradation mechanisms, such as creep and fatigue. With likely deviations in
the initial geometry, material condition and service history from the assumptions made in design, in-service
inspections and adjustment according to the results can help to avoid suboptimal operation and
maintenance. Increasing grid fluctuation due to intermittent wind power may strain the production capacity
covering for the gaps created by periods of unavailable renewables. The impact is modest as long as the
gaps are covered by flexible options such as spinning reserves and hydro power, but increasing needs and
reducing reserves could result in shortening equipment life, e.g. at locations of strong thermal transients. In
countries with high share of renewables, there is often a shift to capacity that responds faster in cycling
service than older steam plants, and also emit less CO2. In Finland, significant reduction to CO2 emissions
is expected from new nuclear capacity that would however not help much in supply fluctuation. Further
flexible production will be therefore needed, as more wind power will be added.

1. Introduction

Welded high temperature piping (Figure 1) is used in thermal power plants and many other process plants
to transport the energy carrier medium from the heat sources to points of consumption or conversion. The
health and performance of such pipework will significantly contribute to the reliability and economy of
operation that is today rarely punctuated by unplanned interruptions. Nevertheless, hot pipework is designed
for finite life and will experience ageing in service. It will therefore need occasional attention to where, when
and how the ageing will limit life, and how to appropriately respond to it. Life will be consumed at the highest
rate at critical locations such as welded joints with the most adverse combination of materials properties,
temperature and loading history. Both such combinations and the resulting damage will inevitably deviate to
some extent from those assumed in design, and therefore the actual life and the limiting locations may differ
from the rather approximate assumptions of the (minimum) design life. The well-established approach is
then to try adjusting the assumed or predicted life, and plans on future actions, according to the available
information on component and material characteristics, service history, and observations. Updating will be
necessary at times, as the service history will evolve with new information from inspections and
maintenance, including possible repairs, replacements or modifications [1,2]. In practice it is essential to find
the areas of maximum damage, as these will determine the locations and timing to inspect and finally to
repair or replace components before failure or unplanned outage. The expected locations of interest may
change in time, not only because of obvious reasons such as implemented repairs and component
replacements, but also due to possible changes in operation. In particular, such changes may arise in the
demand enforcing more frequent cycling, i.e. more numerous start-ups/shutdowns, in response to increasing
share of intermittent supply in the grid.

Figure 1. A section of the main steam pipework of a medium-size power plant, with letters in bold indicating
areas of potential interest for inspections

2. Adaptation to climate policies: Impact of increased cycling

The supply from renewables such as wind is today fairly predictable in short term, but remains very variable
in availability (Figure 2a). As the capacity of wind power increases in northern Europe, the fluctuation is
stressing the complementing plants. To the extent that this will apply to thermal units, it may significantly
reduce the available time in service, i.e. life of high temperature components that were not designed for such
cyclic and ramping operation. Additional challenges can arise from the simultaneous drive to reduce fossil
capacity in general, and to introduce large units that are efficient in base load but less ideal for load-follow
or cyclic operation.
In Finland, the challenge from fluctuating supply is not yet as urgent as in some other regions in Europe,
mainly because the share of wind power is still modest, about 7% of the production in 2018, and the current
solar capacity remains marginal. Fluctuation in such a modest level is reasonably supported by spinning and
other reserves, hydro capacity and imports. Power import remains high particularly during the coldest winter
season (Figure 2b), although it is expected to decrease with new capacity entering service. Aligned with the
climate policies to reduce emissions, the new capacity would mainly consist of wind, biomass or waste firing,
and nuclear, while fossil supply keeps winding down. The impact from renewables will be more pronounced
after this trend has proceeded further in the national electricity supply (Figure 3). Depending on the scenario,
the renewables excluding hydro and biomass could provide up to about 50% of the total by 2050. Such a
strong transformation would require much adaptation to manage the risk of grid disturbance, and could be
at least as challenging for technology as for the economy of the solutions [3-5].

2000
1800 Production
1600 36 h forecast

1400
1200
MWh/h

1000
800
600
400
200
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170
Time (h)

a) b)

Figure 2. a) Wind power supply (week 7, 2019) varies from near zero to about 20% of the daytime (winter)
power production; b) power (MWe) consumption (black) and production (green) during the coldest season
[3] .

a) b)

Figure 3. a) Foreseen electricity supply in Finland by sourcing [4]; two first scenaria (WEM, EU-80%)
represent conventional climate policies, next four alternatives more ambitious emphasis on renewables; b)
examples of emission levels and share of low emission/renewable sources in electricity production [5].
3. Impact of plant technology, including materials

Flexibility of production is expected to increase its relative value with the growing need to efficiently cover
for the grid fluctuation. It is not trivial to accommodate flexibility to the existing steam units with thick-wall
components that can set stringent limits to the acceptable thermal transients. Such components include for
example the steam chest and other large valve bodies of the boiler and turbine ends of the steam pipework.
The response can be faster if the fluctuation is within the ranges of spinning reserves, or relies on gas
turbines, gas engines, or hydro capacity. Further options to the current alternatives would benefit from
improvements or new technology, particularly in regions with limited access to hydro, gas or comparable
backup resources. In case of thermal plants, support to flexibility may arise for example when arrangements
can be made to avoid other than hot starts by limiting the cooling between the periods of operation.
In practice, significant stresses and strains, and therefore evolving damage, will eventually appear at
locations of geometric and material transients such as nozzles, notches and welds. Considering the high
temperature end of the plant, most cyclic stresses may arise from the responses to the thermal transients,
and hence benefits can be expected from low and compatible values of the coefficient of thermal expansion
in addition to good levels of material strength and ductility/toughness under the appropriate loading
conditions. For steam piping, ferritic steels remain the materials of choice, in spite of some ambition towards
nickel alloys with increased operating pressures and temperatures from the currently highest levels of about
300 bar / 600-620°C. In Finland and also elsewhere, the trend has been rather the opposite, as a result of
the corrosive renewable and mixed fuels on the boiler internals. Regardless of the material group, higher
material strength could allow for thinner wall sections and lower stresses from thermal transients. However,
increasing strength may accompany reduced ductility and increased propensity to develop in-service
damage, and this can apply both to short-term and long-term (creep) properties. For example, the principle
of developing high strength alloys by adding ingredients and processing for precipitation strengthening can
result in materials with low ductility, if e.g. fabrication or ageing will produce narrow channels or internal
surfaces where the in-service strains will concentrate. This has been a relatively common if not inevitable
consequence when adding for example small amounts of strong carbide or carbonitride formers such as V,
W, Nb and/or Ta to plain low-alloy or higher alloy Cr-Mo and Cr-Ni(-Mo) steels that mostly exhibit modest
strength and fair ductility. There remains interest in strengthening or optimising the properties of the current
high temperature steels without compromising creep ductility.

4. Life assessment – In-service experience vs. design

Until recently, many thermal power plants have enjoyed relatively steady base load operation in CHP mode
supported by district heating or industrial steaming services, with expected creep-dominated life for the high
temperature piping. The heat affected zones (HAZ) of welds are common critical locations for creep damage
in ferritic steels. The damage appears at a material-dependent rate as creep cavities forming in the HAZ,
first in apparently scattered pattern with gradually increasing density, linking to form chains and finally cracks
that produce the fracture surface [15]. Figure 4 shows examples of in-service creep damage in the HAZ of
ferritic steels, in the form of scattered and orientated creep cavities.
 a) b)

Figure 4. In-service creep damage in a) welded low-alloy steel; b) heat affected zone of X20CrMoV11-1

When appropriate measurements are available, creep-dominated damage in pipework can be assessed by
strain-based comparison to specified strain limits, e.g. εc = 0.1% to 2%. This kind of approach is described
in e.g. TRD 508. Another approach is the comparison to graded damage scales of creep cavitation and
cracking [15]. Replica inspections are often used for such damage characterization in combination with other
NDT techniques, such as PT, MT and UT.
For those plants that will feel the impact from increased cycling and ramping, combined damage of
creep and fatigue may emerge. Current standards, design codes and assessment procedures, such as EN
12952-4 [6], EN 13480-3 [7], EN 13445-3 [10], RCC-MRx [9] and ASME III NH [8], assess the combined
creep and fatigue damage DR as its summed creep (Dc) and fatigue (Df) damage components that are
interpreted as the corresponding linear life fractions (see Figure 5). The assessment procedures usually
follow the inverse design approach to calculate the total damage, and tend to predict (overly) conservative
life. Figure 5 also presents creep-fatigue test results for P91 steel. As in this case, typical laboratory
experiments include relatively short fatigue cycles with elevated stresses and strains, and therefore
represent fatigue dominated damage with much shorter periods of hold (steady service) than in actual plant
operation. In life assessment, the differences in the cycles will complicate extrapolation from laboratory test
results towards the in-service conditions of the plant. In simple cases the classical linear life fraction rule [6-
10] may assume that the life-limiting cycles for combined creep and fatigue damage are approximately of
similar type for the leading location of the leading component. Then at the limit state such as failure or
damage initiation, after time t and number of cycles N under given operating conditions, and with
corresponding limit values tR and NR under the same conditions, after summing for all relevant conditions,

∑(𝑡𝑡/ 𝑡𝑡𝑅𝑅 ) + ∑(𝑁𝑁/ 𝑁𝑁𝑅𝑅 ) = 𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷 + 𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷 = 𝐷𝐷𝑅𝑅 (1),

where the combined damage factor DR ≤ 1 at the critical or limiting state of in-service damage. A further
simplification assumes that a single cycle type, for example from characteristic cold start to shutdown,
dominates the life-limiting cycles. Multiplying equation (1) by tR, we can take tRDR = L to represent equivalent
creep life for these fixed conditions, and C = tR/NR >> 1 [h/cycle] as a characteristic ratio of rupture time to
number of cycles to failure under the same conditions. Then the time to the critical state

𝑡𝑡 = 𝐿𝐿 − 𝐶𝐶 ∙ 𝑁𝑁 (2).
Here the ramping factor C will depend on cycle details, and typically increases for stronger transients, for
example is larger for cycles with cold starts than with hot starts. For a piping, the limiting value could arise
from the thermal cycle of some thick-wall component such as a valve body at the steam turbine. Combined
life consumption is in principle tractable, when the significant cycles can be reasonably classified into bins
of indicated or calculable levels of temperature and stress both for steady operation and transients.

1 Typical range
0,9 of base load
operation
0,8 P91 CF tests
RCC-MRx
Total creep damage Dc

0,7
Dc + Df = 1
0,6 Dc + Df = 0.5
0,5 Increased
cycling
0,4
0,3 Typical range of
Start of CF laboratory tests
0,2 inspections
0,1 at the latest

0
0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1
Total fatigue damage Df

Figure 5. Creep-fatigue (CF) interaction diagram and CF test results of P91 (X10CrMoVNb9-1) steel,
assessed using time fractions for Dc, in comparison to selected limit lines indicated by codes/standards

When the actual operating cycles start to differ from the assumed characteristics, e.g. due to more frequent
cycles and/or more abrupt ramping, the damage modifies its character towards more fatigue dominated
damage. In practice the resulting damage may develop faster, requiring inspections earlier than normally
expected, and possibly need for re-inspections, repairs and renewal more frequently than foreseen in the
design. Experience from inspection statistics can help to set the DR limits that however will tend to decrease
with more intensive cycling (Figure 2). A comparable challenge may also arise when introducing new
structural materials or process modifications to an existing plant. In principle, even in such cases the
approach of eq. (2) may work, provided that the characteristic cycles can be established for useful
correlations to the accumulating damage and life consumption. Much of the conventional approach to
assessing the accumulating damage relies on off-line monitoring, i.e. inspections. When in doubt, useful
supporting data could be sought from on-line monitoring of strain/displacement or crack growth.
Note that the linear life fraction rule of eq. (1) is approximate only and should not be overextended for
very variable cycles. One reason is that the actual life can differ after two cycles depending on their order.
Nevertheless, the rule is widely used when the cycle characteristics remain reasonably comparable. When
the required data are available, more accurate prediction can be attempted by e.g. by adopting specific
principles of cycle counting [4] and/or using the approach of ductility exhaustion [11,12]. More detailed
assessment methods tend to require more data on materials, geometric details, and status of the component.
This is also the case when assessing the life of components with existing or postulated defects [11,13]. While
in general the optimal process economy will require finite life of the critical equipment, conventional solutions
tend to rely on routines that do not produce too many surprises. This may not apply when seeking competitive
edge by introducing new processes, technology or other changes in the operating environment. In a small
country, new large-scale combustion units are less likely, so in this sense not too many surprises for life
management and maintenance are expected.
5. Maintenance: Inspect, run, repair or replace

Optimal inspections would avoid as much as possible unnecessary review of locations where not much is
happening, and on the other hand aim to find and characterize the relevant damage. Inspections and revised
life assessment can be supported by in-service analysis with updated geometry and in-service loading
(Figures 6-8).
Further support for pipework inspections can be found from the evaluated damage (strain, creep
cavitation/cracking), taking into account material-specific features, indications of damage initiation
(depending on age, service history, resolution of equipment), indications of damage growth in terms of
spatial, temporal and (possibly) interaction characteristics; and the assessed locally expired life fraction.
Risk-based inspection (RBI) aims to establish the scope and timing of inspections based on the
evaluated risk (Figure 6b). With the systematic treatise, RBI can help to optimize targeting of inspections
and maintenance, and to use added freedoms allowed by regulatory options when these are available.
Although RBI is more commonly applied in chemical industry for large systems of clear safety hazards, in
power plants suitable applications of RBI can be found in the high-energy piping and pressure vessels. The
practices vary between national or company traditions, but the opportunity to wider application is supported
by the globally increasing acceptance by national regulatory bodies and standardization for RBI [11-13].
The implemented RBI systems, while possibly appearing initially somewhat tedious, are likely to carry
distinct benefits in justified scope of inspections and maintenance, in learning from the systematic risk-based
treatment of components, and in improved opportunities for knowledge transfer within the personnel on the
accumulating experience of the plant systems and critical components.
The implemented RBI application exercise on the main steam line of a CHP plant appeared to confirm
the expectations: the inspection planning and other action can be given systematic justification based on
risk ranking provided by RBI. The limited first application to the steam system cannot show all other benefits
from longer term RBI experience, but there seems to be no particular reason either not to expect them. The
observations of the type IV creep damage of a welded branch after more than 200 000 h of service (Figures
4b and 6a) seem to confirm the generally reasonably good and creep ductile behaviour of welded steel
X20CrMoV11-1, and even in this case the specified weld repair was conducted within the planned outage.

a) b)

Figure 6. a) Inspecting an X20 steam line component after repair welding; b) principles of implementing risk-
based (or risk-informed) inspections: both the selected risk policy (limit) and inspection performance will
affect the expected minimum life, i.e. time to next inspection [14-19]
 a) b)

Figure 7. a) An opened section of a 600 mm steam header, with an arrow pointing to a drain branch under
the header; b) a close-up of the drain branch for inspection after 290000 h of service

a) b)

Figure 8. a) A partial scan of the header, with a nozzle on top and a drain branch at the bottom; b) base
material creep damage on the header side of the drain branch

6. Conclusions and summary

The conventional experience with high temperature pipework of power and process plants largely concerns
operation and maintenance of base load plants that will experience only small to modest impact from cycling.
In Finland this stems from the need for wintertime district heating in cities and other population centres, and
steady flow of process steam and power in the industry, loads that do not fluctuate much over time.
However, increasing fluctuation from intermittent production by renewables, mainly wind in case of
Finland where solar has minor role, may strain the equipment of the production capacity that must cover for
the gaps created by periods of unavailable renewables. Such periods are fairly predictable in short term, but
this will not protect the complementing plants from the impact of resulting cycling and ramping loads. The
risk is low as long as the gaps are covered by very flexible options like spinning reserves and hydro power,
but beyond that shortened equipment life could be expected in load-following plants at components that
suffer most from thermal transients.
The change from the creep-dominated service to increasing cyclic contribution will not only reduce the
expected life of the high temperature components, but also grow the economic pressure to the
complementing plants, such as fossil steam plants and CHP units. In countries where this process has
proceeded further than in Finland, there is for example more shift from coal to gas fired plants that may
respond faster in cycling service, and also emit less CO2. In Finland, significant reduction to CO2 emissions
is expected from new nuclear capacity that would however not help much in supply fluctuation. The challenge
will therefore remain to develop the flexible production mix, as further wind power will be added. Because of
the overriding needs by climate policies, attempts to consider for example new materials, higher operating
pressures and temperatures, and larger efficient units of thermal power have been delegated to position of
lesser urgency. It also means more importance to solutions to simultaneously maintain or possibly upgrade
the availability and flexibility of the existing capacity as much as possible.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the VTT service development program
ProperScan®.

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