Prediction of remnant life of industrial components performing under high temperature high stress conditions

Abstract

Reliable industrial equipment operation is of great importance, particularly when the equipment/ component operates under high stress and high temperature conditions, because if an accident were to occur, it would be catastrophic and environmentally hazardous. The problem gets worse if it were a plant handling toxic and/ or dangerous chemicals. Unplanned shutdowns lead to a drastic loss in production and a long idle time till replacement and commissioning. Replacement costs are often very high. Hence it is highly desirable to extend the service life of an equipment beyond its design life. Due to incorporation of a factor of safety in design, the design life is clearly less than the time up to which the equipment is likely to last in real life. The long delivery time of new equipment makes it worth considering the alternative of prolonging the equipment life. Such a consideration leads to Remaining Life Assessment (RLA). The real lifetime of industrial components depends on the operating conditions and maintenance. These problems have been addressed by various research institutes and industries which have created different methodologies for assessing the remaining life of every component at various temperatures and stress conditions. The three major factors that determine the service life of a component in a high-temperature, high stress environment are creep, fatigue, and creep-fatigue interaction. To cite a few examples, high temperatures combined with high stress levels accelerate damage to components such as steam piping, inlet valves, high pressure (HP) turbine casings and rotors etc. newlineThe objective of this research is the estimation of the remaining life of industrial equipment which are performing under high-temperature and high-stress conditions. newline newline