This document summarizes information about corrosion fatigue in boilers. Corrosion fatigue describes cracking in high-stress regions of tubes due to localized corrosion. It occurs where tubes are water-wetted, such as at attachments. Cracks tend to be axial and outline welds. They have irregular, bulbous surfaces. Corrosion fatigue requires both high oxygen levels in boiler water and high-stress regions, creating corrosion cells. It is most severe during start-up when oxygen is not yet controlled and in frequently started boilers.
This document summarizes information about corrosion fatigue in boilers. Corrosion fatigue describes cracking in high-stress regions of tubes due to localized corrosion. It occurs where tubes are water-wetted, such as at attachments. Cracks tend to be axial and outline welds. They have irregular, bulbous surfaces. Corrosion fatigue requires both high oxygen levels in boiler water and high-stress regions, creating corrosion cells. It is most severe during start-up when oxygen is not yet controlled and in frequently started boilers.
This document summarizes information about corrosion fatigue in boilers. Corrosion fatigue describes cracking in high-stress regions of tubes due to localized corrosion. It occurs where tubes are water-wetted, such as at attachments. Cracks tend to be axial and outline welds. They have irregular, bulbous surfaces. Corrosion fatigue requires both high oxygen levels in boiler water and high-stress regions, creating corrosion cells. It is most severe during start-up when oxygen is not yet controlled and in frequently started boilers.
This document summarizes information about corrosion fatigue in boilers. Corrosion fatigue describes cracking in high-stress regions of tubes due to localized corrosion. It occurs where tubes are water-wetted, such as at attachments. Cracks tend to be axial and outline welds. They have irregular, bulbous surfaces. Corrosion fatigue requires both high oxygen levels in boiler water and high-stress regions, creating corrosion cells. It is most severe during start-up when oxygen is not yet controlled and in frequently started boilers.
A VIEW FROM THE PENTHOUSE: USEFUL INFORMATION FOR THE WORLD OF BOILERS
CORROSION FATIGUE Corrosion fatigue, sometimes compression along the membranes. In called stress-enhanced or stress- the wind box, the preheater assisted corrosion, describes that combustion air may expand the water-side condition that leads to support steel faster than the steam leaks due to localized waterwalls and stretch the tubes cracking in the regions of high parallel to the membranes. stress. The cracks are a series of Regardless of the temperature connected pits that in cross section differentials, an applied strain is are suggestive of oxygen attack. generated within the furnace. The problem occurs in water-wetted Figure 2 presents an example of tubes in both waterwalls and longitudinal cracking on the ID economizers at attachments, e.g., about 9 0 " apart, indicative of both buck-stay clips, on the colder side a push and a pull along the of the tube. A view from the ID membranes. surface coincides with the attachment, as the cracks are limited to the area of the OD weld. On occasion the damage is a series of concentric rings of cracks that outline the attachment weld on the outside. More typically, the damage is axial cracks. Figure 1 is one such example.
Figure 2 A cross section through a corrosion-fatigue crack shows a wide, irregular, bulbous form, or shape, to the crack surfaces; the crack tip is often blunt or rounded, see for example Figure 3. Figure 1 Depending on the precise state of stress, the confluence of several attachments at the circular cross section may be the site for several concentrated regions of cracking. Start-up conditions consist of a hot waterwall and a relatively cool support structure. The cooler buck- stays prevent thermal expansion of the tubes, which leads to a Figure 3 The non-uniformity to the sides of roughened surface but no localized the crack suggest several episodes deep pitting or cracks, as shown for of corrosion occurred even after the example in Figure 4 from an crack was well established. Such economizer tube. While stresses are cracks may be widened during a necessary, the important variable is chemical cleaning. A rash of leaks the oxygen concentration in the may be found after cleaning, as the water. Corrosion fatigue is a removal of oxide or corrosion debris better description than stress- has removed the "plugw. Cracks of enhanced or stress-assisted this morphology are more common in corrosion. cycling units. -
The examination of the water-side
surfaces throughout the boiler would indicate a roughened, pitted condition that is usually associated with oxygen corrosion. Thus the two conditions required are 1) oxygen concentrations within the boiler water that are in excess of the water-chemistry control guidelines, and 2) a region of higher-than- normal stress. The hiqhly stressed regions create the anode of a corrosion cell, and the corrosion Figure 4 occurs more rapidly than in the surrounding area. Corrosion fatigue occurs in those This form of corrosion fatigue regions of water-touched or steam- has sometimes been called stress- generating tubes where there is the enhanced or stress-assisted highest local stress, often at the corrosion. However, the most likely water side of buck-stay attachment scenario in an operating system is clips, or membrane welds surrounding that the unit comes on line before openings from burner or wind-box the oxygen concentration in the attachments. boiler water is stabilized within While the term fatigue usually is the control range. The thermal- associated with a variable stress, expansion stresses of the start-up in this case the stress may be quite and the oxygen within the boiler uniform; but the corrosive water lead to the formation of these environment, that is, the oxygen localized regions of preferential levels within the boiler water, are corrosion. Once the oxygen the variable. The most severe concentrations reach the proper damage occurs during start-up when level, the corrosion stops until the the oxygen concentration is not next cycle. In those portions of under proper control. The the boiler where the stress is not phenomenon is also most severe in excessive or is quite uniform, the those boilers that are subject to oxygen corrosion leads to a frequent start-ups.
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