Residual Creep Life Assessment of High-Temperature Components in Power Industry

A large percentage of power, petroleum, and chemical plants over the world were in operation for a long duration with the corresponding critical components being used beyond the design life of 30 to 40 years. It is generally more cost-effective to refurbish or modernize the degraded equipment or components, rather than to construct a new plant. Therefore, a reliable plant life extension assessment that can evaluate the critical components is needed. The key element in plant life extension is the residual life assessment technology. However, at present, there is still no general consensus among the industry players on the approach to adopt when performing residual life assessment for such a critical damage mechanism as creep. In this article, a three-level residual life assessment methodology is proposed as a general approach for high-temperature components prone to creep. A detailed validation of the selected guidelines and calculation models is also described. Eventually, an application of the three-level methodology to a real industrial case study is presented.