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RWE Innovation Centre – Service life assessment

Assessment of real components

Requirement: Service life assessment

The challenge

  • Flexible plant use could mean actual service life of collectors in super-critical steam generators is shorter than the calculated service life
  • These collectors are constructed with a reduced wall thickness to optimise use under flexible conditions
  • The interim result from operational monitoring is that the designed service life is not being achieved.
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Method

Step 1, R&D:

  • Generate material data and optimise calculation method
  • Base material: Scatter band analysis
  • Weld seam: Weld reduction factor
  • Flexible operation: Interactions between creep and fatigue

Step 2, Component assessment:

  • Reassessment of actual service life based on representative actual material data with new calculation methods

Objective

  • Robust service life assessment to guarantee or make existing predictions more specific

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