Prospects for 12Cr martensitic creep resistant steels for 650℃steam power plant

In the last three decades new stronger modified 9%Cr steels have been introduced in new power plants with steam parameters up to 300 bar(1 bar =10~5 Pa) and 600℃. In order to further increase the steam parameters of steel based power plants up to a target value of 650℃/ 325 bar it is necessary to double the creep strength compared with todays strongest 9%Cr steels,and at the same time the resistance against steam oxidation must be improved by adding 12%Cr to the steel. However,so far all attempts to make stronger 12%Cr steels have been unsuccessful because the high chromium content introduced severe microstructure instabilities in the tested steels.Recently,it was found that the microstructure instabilities in 11%- 12%Cr steels can be explained by the precipitation of coarse Cr(V,Nb)N Z-phases, which dissolve fine(V,Nb)N nitrides. A new possibility to use the Z-phase for strengthening of 12%Cr steels has been identified,and the development of stable strong martensitic 12%Cr steels based on this concept is expected to allow the construction of 325 bar/ 650℃steam power plants all based on steel.

Study on creep-fatigue damage evaluation for advanced 9%–12% chromium steels under stress controlled cycling

Creep-fatigue interaction is one of the main damage mechanisms in high temperature plants and their components. Assessment of creep-fatigue properties is of practical importance for design and operation of high temperature components. However, the standard evaluation techniques, i.e. time fraction rule and ductility exhaustion one have limitations in accounting for the effects of control mode on the cyclic deformations. It was found that conventional linear cumulative damage rule failed in accurately evaluating the creep-fatigue life under stress controlled condition. The calculated creep damages by time fraction rule were excessively high, which led to overly conservative prediction of failure lives. In the present study, it was suggested that such over estimation of creep damage was mainly caused by anelastic strain upon stress loading. For precise assessment under conditions of stress control, a modified creep damage model accounting for the effect of anelastic creep was proposed. The assessments of creep fatigue data under stress controlled condition were performed with the new approach developed in this paper for a rotor material and a boiler material used in ultra supercritical power plants. It was shown that a more moderate amount of creep damage was obtained by the new model, which gave better predictions of failure life.