The Effect of Alloy Elements on Cyclic Fatigue Behavior of Bucket Candidate Materials for USC Power Plants

The demand for ultra supercritical (USC) power plants has increased due to the need for high thermal efficiency and reduced CO(2) emissions. For turbine materials, high-cycle and low-cycle fatigue life at USC service temperatures are needed to verify material integrity due to the heat-up and cool-down process of power plant operation and due to turbine variations during operation. In this paper, fatigue characteristics for 9 similar to 12 Cr steels as candidate USC bucket materials were investigated. First, the fatigue life between DS2B2 and COST B2 steel were compared. COST B2 is the commercial steel with improved high temperature properties by adding boron, and DS2B2 is the new steel developed by Doosan by adding Co and adjusting Mo and W based on the same Mo equivalent value (%wt. Mo + 1/2 %wt. W). DS2B2 steel was found to have longer low cycle fatigue life than COST B2. Second, the effect of boron on fatigue life for bucket materials based on COST B2 steel was investigated. At room temperature, as boron content increased, low cycle fatigue life became superior, whereas, at 593 degrees C the fatigue life was similar. For high cycle fatigue, as boron content increased, fatigue life increased due to the strengthening effect by the addition of boron.