Effect of dwell time on stress intensity factor of ferritic steel for steam turbine applications

Sammanfattning: In the transition from conventional to green energy production resources, steam turbines are used to satisfy the lack of energy during peaks in the demand times and the limited access of renewable resources. This type of usage for steam turbines makes them operate on a flexible schedule, which leads to unpredictable issues related to shorter component life and faster crack propagation. Thus, the steam turbine components must be examined to determine their specific life period. This will help set proper maintenance intervals and prevent unexpected failures. For that, thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) testing is used, where a specimen made of the same material as the turbine component is subjected to both temperature and load variation. The specimen is pre-cracked to investigate the crack propagation behavior, which is the focus of this study. This thesis work concentrates on simulating the TMF cycle for the steam turbine casing component. The material is 9%-10%Cr ferritic steel. The aim is to understand the material behavior during crack propagation and to predict a useful testing parameter. The method provided in this work discusses two cases, both are out-of-phase (OP) TMF tests with strain control. The maximum and minimum temperatures for the cycle are 600 ˚C and 400 ˚C respectively, while the maximum and minimum strain levels are 0 and  respectively. The study will investigate different , which is the maximum compressive strain level. Case 1 has a dwell time at the maximum temperature only, while case 2 has dwell times at both maximum and minimum temperatures. The method utilizes the stress intensity factor (SIF) to characterize the crack tip conditions. Also, it uses Paris' law to estimate the duration of the tests. For simplification, only the elastic behavior of the material is considered. The results obtained show no effect of using different pre-crack lengths due to the strain control condition. Minor effects can be observed by using different dwell times, however very short dwell times must be avoided to produce reliable results. A recommended dwell time of 5 minutes could be used, since longer dwell times will make the test prohibitively time-consuming. The compressive strain levels used in the work shows large effects on the results. Using low compressive strain values will produce a very long time for the tests, while very high compressive strains produce large plasticity. Thus, high compressive strains must be avoided since the SIF describes cracks for only elastic or near elastic cases. Also, small compressive strain levels in case 2 should not be used since it will lead to results like case 1. This is due to the small creep effect at the minimum temperature. Finally, compressive strain levels of 0.6 %, 0.5 % and 0.4 % are recommended for case 1, while only 0.6 % compressive strain level is recommended for case 2. This thesis contributes to the fields of solid mechanics, fracture mechanics and the use of TMF testing, where a recommended set of testing parameters are provided.