High Temperature ultra sound testing for in Situ condition monitoring of super heated steam to improve creep life of platen super heater tubes in ultra super critical power plants

Dharmendra Kumar Jain; Dr. Sanjeev Mishra

Volume : IV, Issue : V, May - 2015

High Temperature ultra sound testing for in Situ condition monitoring of super heated steam to improve creep life of platen super heater tubes in ultra super critical power plants

Dharmendra Kumar Jain, Dr. Sanjeev Mishra

Abstract :

The Present paper gives an overview of high temperature ultra sound testing of super heater steam zone in platen super heater tubes in ultra super critical power plants modern power plants are based on ultra super critical technology require higher temperature and pressure of steam. Due to material degradation during aging of power plants boiler outage may take place. Creep phenomenon may be a dominant cause of tube failure results in boiler outage. If critical features at high temperature operation in platen super heater tubes are not detected in advance, they may cause catastrophic damage and failure which may result in environmental pollution and negative impact on power plant economics. During planned outage of power plants various non–destructive techniques can be used to assess the integrity of platen super heater tube. In this paper the hypothesis is based on condition monitoring of aging power plants in between outage as preventive measure to minimize boiler outage during plant operation. To extent life of power plant components with safe operation reliability centered maintenance may be a mile stone. In situ condition monitoring techniques may play vital role in reduction of boiler outage. NDE ultra sound transducers may provide a path towards reliability centered in situ condition monitoring the major challenge is safe and reliable operation of transducer with basic concept of long range ultra sonic testing during plant operation. To improve efficiency of power plants and to minimize waste heat, steam temperature and pressure must be upgraded to improve quality of steam. Due to material restriction and lack of continuous condition monitoring of platen super heater tubes during plant operation these areas require proper attention in research. This paper may be an indicative document for key areas with possible solutions of in situ condition monitoring through long range ultra sonic testing in ultra super critical power plants.