Recent advances in creep-resistant steels for power plant applications

The higher steam temperatures and pressures required to achieve increase in thermal efficiency of fossil fuel-fired power-generation plants necessitate the use of steels with improved creep rupture strength. The 9% chromium steels developed during the last three decades are of great interest in such applications. In this report, the development of steels P91, P92 and E911 is described: It is shown that the martensitic transformation in these three steels produces high dislocation density that confers significant transient hardening. However, the dislocation density decreases during exposure at service temperatures due to recovery effects and for long-term creep strength the sub-grain structure produced under different conditions is most important. The changes in the microstructure mean that great care is needed in the extrapolation of experimental data to obtain design values. Only data from tests with rupture times above 3,000 h provide reasonable extrapolated values. It is further shown that for the 9% chromium steels, oxidation resistance in steam is not sufficiently high for their use as thin-walled components at temperatures of 600degreesC and above. The potential for the development of steels of higher chromium contents (above 11%) to give an improvement in steam oxidation resistance whilst maintaining creep resistance to the 9% chromium steels is discussed.