The launch of this multi-client Group Sponsored Project (GSP) is a follow-up to an ETD’s earlier exploratory phase GSP called ‘P91 Integrity’. P91 Integrity project involved a good deal of preliminary work on new equipment development (with our industrial collaborators) for the early stage detection and monitoring of creep cavities and damage in P91 steel.
The new equipment development and preliminary testing involved the development of Scanning Force Microscopy (SFM) to detect on-site ‘early stage nano-level cavitation’ in these steels, Electrical Discharge Sampling Equipment (EDSE) to cut out ‘boat samples’ of various sizes (1mm to 15mm thick), new more sensitive UT probes for detecting cavities (rather than just cracks) and new more sensitive potential drop equipment etc. again to monitor low level cavitation.
Subsequent to the successful development of these techniques and in some cases their in-plant use, ETD has now formulated a fully fledged proposal to validate these techniques and confirm the relationship between these findings and integrity and quantitative remaining life assessment of P91/ P92 components. This is in view of the urgent need to develop reliable and validated inspection, monitoring and life assessment techniques and methodologies for these steels as the damage in these steels goes quickly from small scale cavitation (at nano level during the early stages of life which is difficult to detect by conventional techniques) to full scale cracking and failure (missing the intermediate steps of cavity linking and micro cracking etc) without much warning.
This group sponsored project for industry sponsorship involves systematic study of mainly P91 (and some P92) welded pipes tested under creep and creep-fatigue conditions, their inspection at regular intervals and monitoring during testing using the new innovative tools developed in the ‘P91 Integrity’ project. The pipe tests will be supported by lab specimens involving creep, creep-fatigue (to account for the cyclic plant operation) and creep/fatigue crack growth testing. This work should give us relationships and tools for the integrity and remaining life assessment of these materials from their early stage damage indications.
As it is a group sponsored project the cost will be shared between a number of partners and the work will be carried out ETD and its experts. Apart from the final reports and procedures we will give the project results and data to the sponsors for their future use.
The payments for participation in the project will be spread over the two year project period and will be required at the project milestone stages (apart from the one advance payment at the time of the start of the project – aimed to be during summer 2013) so that the sponsors will pay only when they receive progress reports/ results or certain project deliverables.
- Note: any hardware developed / refined for use in the project (e.g. low frequency potential drop equipment, SFM, EDSE etc.) will be offered to the project sponsors (if required) at a reduced rate.
Please contact us and tell us of your potential interest and we can then send you the full proposal with testing, deliverables, costs and other details.