15th Asia Pacific Conference for Non-Destructive Testing (APCNDT2017), Singapore.

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Nondestructive Evaluation of Creep and Overheating Damage in

Low-Carbon Steel Boiler Tubes
A. Vakhguelt1, S. D. Kapayeva2, M. J. Bergander1, S. I. Khairaliyev1
1
Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
2
Eastern Kazakhstan Technical University, Ust Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

Abstract

Statistics from electric power generation plants show that overheating is the primary
reason for boiler tube deterioration and ruptures. Overheating in its early stage affects only
metal structure without any visible symptoms, such as cracks, cavities, pits, etc., and
therefore it can only be detected by a metallurgical analysis on removed tube samples.
Recent investigations have pointed to an internal oxide layer as an important marker of an
overheating condition, thus the degree to which the metal structure is degraded can be
indirectly determined by measuring the thickness of the internal oxide scale.
Consequently, special ultrasonic test procedures and instrumentation have been developed
and successfully used for Cr-Mo steels. However, in many areas of the world such as
Steel20 rather than Cr-Mo steels is a material-of-choice for water-wall tubes. This brings
new challenges since the overheating and creep initiation can occur at lower temperatures
(approx. 425C for low-carbon steel), which maybe only slightly higher than the normal
operating temperatures. The authors have undertaken the systematic research to link the
thickness of internal oxide layer as measured with UT to the actual degradation of metal
structure. During many visits to electric power plants throughout Central Asia, numerous
samples of boiler tubes were collected, both failed as well as those removed from
suspected zones of the boiler. The ultrasonic testing was performed to measure the
thickness of internal oxide scale followed by verification with a microscope. Metallurgical
cross sections were prepared at locations: inside, outside and mid-wall and the
metallurgical structure degradation were observed using an optical microscope. It was
found that close correlation exists between the thickness of the internal scale and the
“degree of overheating damage” for Steel20 samples. The result of this research was a
procedure for ultrasonic testing of low-carbon steel tubes and practical accept/reject
criteria in terms of maximum allowable oxide scale thickness.

[ID245] 1
Keywords: Boilers, corrosion, overheating failures, creep, nondestructive testing, EMAT

1 Most common boiler tube failure modes.

Current work was dedicated to identification of healthy thickness of water wall in the
boiler. Every occurrence of ruptured tubes leads to emergency shutdown of the entire
plant. As boiler ages, corrosion and erosion causes the tube wall to become thinner until it
cannot sustain the internal pressure. Weak (thin-walled) tubes should be replaced or
repaired long before burst can occur. It is common practice to determine the tube wall
thickness at every shutdown by an ultrasonic technique. Mechanical scanning systems are
costly and they take long time to process [1]. Proposed EMAT (electro-magnetic acoustic
transducer) technology does not require special arrangements and therefore could be very
easily adapted for automated testing. This method for water-wall healthy thickness
investigation can replace commonly used ultrasonic testing method. Special conditions are
needed for MS-EMATs (magnetostriction EMAT) to operate; these usually exist on much
of the water-wall, superheater, reheater and economizer sections of coal-fired boilers.
Grades of steel commonly used for water-walls have initially low inherent MS. However,
when it is exposed to conditions commonly encountered in the fire box of coal-fired
boilers (temperatures and pressures), a tightly bonded scale having a large MS coefficient
is formed. Elastic waves generated via this MS require very little excitation power and can
result in very accurate thickness measurements. However, this MS scale is not formed
uniformly throughout the fire box, so accurate thickness measurements cannot be obtained
in all important regions of the water-wall. Additionally, the MS coefficient that determines
the strength of elastic wave signals can vary dramatically with location within the fire box.
In theory, this issue can be managed through proper design of the instrumentation;
however, these features have never been designed into a commercial MS-EMAT thickness
instrument. There is very little published information about “magnetostrictive” EMAT for
boiler tube inspection [2], [3]. In boilers a majority of the wall loss is happening due to
erosion from particle abrasion on the fire side and from internal corrosion [4]. In this paper
authors have done investigations of healthy thickness of water-wall pipes using
“magnetostrictive” EMAT technology. The proposed technology was used to inspect the
water-wall pipes in boilers where coal is a major fuel for producing electricity. We had
determined that the main damage mechanisms contributing to boiler tube failures is a

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combination of corrosion/wall thinning and overheating. Considering this, we applied
NDT method for overheating detection and assessment. The specialized ultrasonic
method for detecting the degree of overheating in boiler tubes by measuring the thickness
of internal oxide scale was selected. Ultrasonic instrument Olympus was used with
developed by M. Bergander optimum transducer. Prototypes of EMA transducers were
designed and two such prototypes were fabricated. The prototypes use state-of-an-art high
energy Neodymium-Iron-Boron permanent magnets with magnetic energy over 56
MGsOe. Transducers have also a novel design of spiral-type coil supplied with a current
of high frequency (1-2MHz), not previously used in such applications. At the moment
there are no known publications that link the quality of EMAT data to the properties of
boiler tubes, especially magnetostriction coefficient of the corrosive scale, thickness of
scale formation and also to boiler operation parameters, i.e. temperatures and pressures. A
few companies and research laboratories in the USA and Europe have attempted to
develop a commercially successful MS-EMAT boiler tubing wall thickness device [5], [6].
They had only limited application because of lack of knowledge about the properties of
boiler tubes in specific plants. A completely new and unique method for Remaining Life
Assessment of boiler tubes was developed under this study. This method considers a
combined effect of both corrosion/wall thinning and overheating.
The main our research objective was to develop non-destructive testing (NDT) technique
which will allow to improve the reliability of coal-fired boilers by reducing down-time
related to failure of water-wall tubes. Our research concentrated on the study of boiler
tubes used in Kazakhstan or mainly pipes made of low carbon Steel20, which is mostly
widespread tube material in water-wall section (although Cr-Mo steels are used in re-
heater and superheater sections). It is well known that the main damage mechanism in coal
fired boilers consists of damage from external (fireside) and internal corrosion and erosion
which will lead to wall thinning. Due to corrosion and erosion from both sides of the tube
wall the heat conduction through the wall will change and usually will be reduced. To
compensate that and produce appropriate amount of steam the temperature in the boiler
should be raised and that leads to overheating of the tubes. Low Carbon steel, however,
brings new requirements as overheating, creep as well as hydrogen embrittlement should
be considered as additional and sometimes major damage mechanisms. It is generally

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recognized that creep may occur in carbon steels at temperatures over 400-440C, which is
well within the range in water-wall boiler tubes [6] during overheating. For that reason,
any preventive maintenance procedures have to consider overheating as a possible cause
of failure. Our investigations were concentrated on carbon steel as a material of choice for
water-wall section of the boiler. We found that the most common reasons for tube failures
in Steel20 were: (i) external and internal corrosion and erosion (ii) long-term overheating
damage (iii) short-term overheating. While a long-term overheating causes a “thick-lip
rupture” with many bulges and cracks visible around, a short-term overheating is
connected with “thin-lip rupture” having sharp edges and usually no evidence of other
damage around the burst [7]. Samples of actual tube failures are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Most common damage mechanisms Figure 2: Principle of EMAT.

observed in boiler water-wall with carbon steel
material (Steel20).

2 EMAT measurement of wall thickness

We are using for our water-wall inspection EMAT principle which relies on generating
ultrasound wave directly in the metal using the transducer described above. The current in
the coil induces eddy currents on the surface of tested tube and the magnet “pushes” those
currents into the tube in the form of elastic wave with ultrasonic velocity, characteristic for
a given metal. Magnetostriction has been developed in the tube material in fire-box allows
us to do measurement of the tube wall thickness. We can measure EMAT signal in the
material of the tubes exposed to conditions commonly encountered in the fire box
(temperatures over 400-450C), where a tightly bonded scale having a large MS coefficient
is formed [8]. EMAT transducers can work with general-purpose ultrasonic instruments
with certain modifications, most important being the adequate initial pulse, at least 400V.
Figure 2 shows the EMAT principle.

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EMAT performance in boiler was checked by numerous tests in USA and UK [4] with the
overall conclusion that EMAT provides accurate data. A part of feasibility study for using
EMAT to test Steel20 tubes was to determine if external corrosion scale has adequate
magnetostrictive properties to generate EMAT signal. It is not critical where the scale is
located (ID vs. OD) as good indications were obtained with scale on either surface while
testing from the outside. More important than location is the chemical composition of the
scale, determining its magnetostrictive properties and its adherence to the parent metal [9].
The scale thickness was found not to be that important in the scale ranging from less than
few microns to 7mm thick [4]. The chemical composition was inspected by SEM. Figure 3
shows two microphotographs of external scale with various thicknesses, various degree of
adherence to parent tube metal with their corresponding chemical composition.

3 Detection of overheating condition

In this paper we concentrate on application of non-destructive test methods and their role
in preventive maintenance and remaining life assessment (RLA).
A tube rupture caused by overheating may occur within few minutes or may take several
years. A long-term overheating can be usually detected in its early stage by several non-
destructive and destructive test methods, while short-term overheating can be compared to
sudden accidents that will be very hard to predict. The long-term overheating is caused by
a combination of long exposure to temperature that can be only slightly above the design
temperatures and stress well below the yield point. It is referred to as “creep damage” and
characterizes by gradual degradation of metallurgical structure, cracks, bulges, swelling
but no detectable changes in wall thickness. The creep prevention should start at the
designing stage to correctly select tube material to withstand the metal temperatures.
Inside the boiler, the heat is transferred from burning fuel or hot gases by radiation or
convection and the outside of tube is very hot – this heat is being transferred to water (in
water-wall tubes) or steam (in re-heater and superheater tubes) inside the tubes. The
temperature gradient then exists from the outermost to innermost layer of the tube and the
"mid-wall temperatures" in carbon steel boiler tubes are designed to be in a range of
370C-420C. Its increase by 100C or even less may already start the process of creep
deterioration. At the initial stage, creep can only be detected by destructive metallographic

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 Figure 3. Microphotographs of two samples with external oxide scale of various thickness with
their corresponding chemical analysis. A solid EMAT signal was obtained for the sample on the left
while the sample on the right has produces only a sparse signal.

examination under the microscope. It starts with graphitization, i.e. changing iron carbide
to graphite at high temperatures. The post-mortem analysis shows thick-lip (low ductility)
burst with spheroidized microstructure and creep cavities in the immediate vicinity of a
rupture [10].
The electric power industry has been looking for a reliable non-destructive test method to
detect creep damage in its early stage [7]. The degree to which creep condition had
deteriorated metal structure can be indirectly determined by measuring the thickness of
internal oxide scale in boiler tubes. Due to low value of thermal conductivity of oxide
scale the external tube surface has to be many degrees hotter. Thus the mid-wall tube
temperature may reach levels high enough for creep damage to initiate. Some sources
show so called “transition temperature” from non-creep affected regime to creep affected
regime. Such temperature for plain carbon steel is 427C [11]. The hard, brittle iron oxide,
containing magnetite and hematite [12] can be formed on surfaces of steel boiler tubing.
During this research, an attempt was made to develop a correlation between the thickness
of internal scale and the “degree of creep damage” for Steel20 samples. The initial work
was done on three samples taken from boiler: one without any internal scale and two
samples with scale of 75 and 140 microns measured by optical microscope. Metallurgical
cross sections were prepared at or close to mid-wall location and metallurgical structures
were observed by optical microscope. Figure 4 shows the comparison between samples
with and without internal oxide at 400X magnification together with appropriate
discussions and explanations.

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 Fig. 4. Metallographical structures for Steel 20. Sample without presence of internal oxide (left),
with oxide scale 75 micron thick (center) and with 140 microns thick (right). Sample in the center
differs by enlarged and elongated grains, indicating the initiation of structural degradation. Sample
on the right has grains elongated with insoluble carbides “bundled” and precipitated on grain
boundaries. This is indicative for creep.

4 Summary and Conclusions

The major objective of this work was to develop a reliable method(s) for non-destructive
evaluation of boiler tubes, which would be especially suited for low carbon steel. Tube
samples, obtained from visited plants were then subjected to non-destructive and
destructive tests. It was concluded that the major damage mechanisms were either wall
thinning or overheating damage and a combination of both. Two ultrasonic test
procedures were recommended for early detection of both these damage types without
necessity of removing tube from the boiler.
EMAT has been proven as an effective method for quick and accurate wall thickness
measurement in water-wall boiler tubes without prior cleaning. Indirect detection of long-
term overheating condition and creep by UT measuring of internal oxide layer thickness
was found to be fully applicable for low carbon steel. This study had demonstrated that
correlation exists between the scale thickness and degree of creep degradation for carbon
steel tubes. The procedure was recommended for determining tube remaining life
under combined effect of thinning and overheating. NDT methods offer an attractive
solution to remaining life assessment in power boilers.

5 Acknowledgements

Work described in this paper was sponsored by a government grant.

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