Effect on the Stabilizing Heat Treatment to Weld Joint for the USC Coal Boiler Tubes(SA213 TP347H)

Ahn, Jong-Seok; Park, Jin-Keun; Lee, Gil-Jae; Yoon, Jae-Yeon

doi:2015.33.4.30

J Weld Join > Volume 33(4); 2015 > Article

Research Paper

Journal of Welding and Joining 2015;33(4):30-36.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5781/JWJ.2015.33.4.30 Published online August 31, 2015.

Effect on the Stabilizing Heat Treatment to Weld Joint for the USC Coal Boiler Tubes(SA213 TP347H)

Jong-Seok Ahn^*, Jin-Keun Park^*, Gil-Jae Lee^*, Jae-Yeon Yoon^*

Correspondence: Jong-Seok Ahn,
Email: ahnjs001@ewp.co.kr

Abstract

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.

Key Words: Ultra-supercritical coal boiler, Stress induce participation hardening crack. Reheat crack, Stabilizing heat treatment