International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 85 (2008) 1421

A perspective on the design of high-temperature boiler components

$
I.J. Perrin

, J.D. Fishburn
ALSTOM Power Inc., Windsor, CT 06095, USA
Abstract
Boiler pressure parts are designed to formalize codes such as the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. These codes employ a
design-by-rule approach, which is based on a combination of sound structural mechanics and boiler design and operating experience.
These codes have served the industry well, but the need for a number of enhancements has been highlighted by the widespread use of
creep strength-enhanced steels, the advent of ultrasupercritical boilers constructed from nickel-based alloys, and the cyclic duty required
for some plants.
The need for these enhancements is discussed to explain their origin and key challenges that must be tackled to provide robust design
methods for the future. In particular, the use of reference stress concepts and design-by-analysis are discussed to highlight some practical
issues. Weldments are identied as a particular concern because they are often a life-limiting feature, and since existing code rules do not
adequately consider the high-temperature creep failure modes that can arise as a function of geometry, loading and material
combination. Associated with the behavior of welds, multiaxial creep rupture is also identied as a topic that requires further study. The
discussion illustrates the multidisciplinary nature of design and need for the materials and structural mechanics communities to work
together. This should optimize the use of advanced, expensive alloys and reduce component wall thickness, facilitating pressure part
manufacture and enhancing operational exibility without compromising safety.
r 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
The boiler or steam generator (Fig. 1) is a key system of
many power generation plants. Stated simply, hot gases
from a combustion process (e.g. burning coal) or waste
heat source (e.g. from a gas turbine) are passed across
various heat transfer surfaces to progressively convert
water into saturated vapor and nally superheated steam,
which is supplied to a steam turbine. The design process for
a boiler begins with basic sizing and thermal performance
calculations to establish heat uxes, pressures, tempera-
tures, and steam ows throughout the boiler. This
information is then used to size the internal diameter of
key steam-containing pressure parts in order to optimize
and balance the pressure drop. Next, materials are selected
and the pressure parts are sized, following a combination
of the prevailing codes and standards enforced by local
regulatory authorities and the economics of material
supply and component fabrication. For non-nuclear
applications within the USA, and in some other parts of
the world, Section I, Power Boilers, of the ASME Boiler
and Pressure Vessel Code [1] governs the sizing of
components, selection of materials, and fabrication proce-
dures. In Europe, the Water Tube Boiler Code, EN12952
[2], serves a similar purpose. This paper focuses on the
application of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code
and the new methodologies under consideration to advance
the code and serve the industry for higher temperature and
pressure power plants.
The design codes employ a so-called design-by-rule
approach based on a combination of sound structural
mechanics and boiler design and operating experience. This
codied approach facilitates rapid sizing of components
and selection of materials, and considers experience with
materials and fabrication methods. The primary intent of
these codes is to ensure safety. Indeed, the preamble to
ARTICLE IN PRESS
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpvp
0308-0161/$ - see front matter r 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpvp.2007.06.008
$
This article appeared in its original form in Creep & Fracture in High
Temperature Components: Design & Life Assessment Issues, 2005.
Lancaster, PA: DEStech Publications, Inc.

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ian.j.perrin@power.alstom.com (I.J. Perrin).
Section I of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code
states that the intent is yto afford reasonable protection
to life and property and to provide margin for deteriora-
tion in service so as to give a reasonably long safe period of
usefulness. This approach has served the industry well, as
demonstrated by an excellent safety record and many
critical boiler pressure parts attaining service lifetimes in
excess of 50 years.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 1. Schematic side elevation of a typical two-pass boiler design developed for ultrasupercritical steam conditions (760C/35 MPa).
I.J. Perrin, J.D. Fishburn / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 85 (2008) 1421 15
In the past decade, several developments have occurred
that highlight the need to advance the methodology in the
ASME Code, namely the following:
The widespread use of advanced, creep strength-
enhanced ferritic steels (e.g. Grades 91, 92 and 122)
has highlighted the need to control fabrication practice,
particularly heat treatment, to ensure that appropriate
microstructures are maintained in components [3].
Furthermore, it is inevitable that these creep strength-
enhanced steels must be welded to more conventional
low alloy steels, such as Grade 22, which can result in
creepweak zones in weldments.
The push to advanced cycles with ultrasupercritical
steam conditions requiring nickel-based alloys (Fig. 2)
has highlighted the need for consistent margins of
safety, which are not excessive, to ensure the economic
viability of using expensive nickel-based alloys. Also, it
is reported [4] that welds in these alloys can exhibit
signicant strength reduction compared with the base
metal.
The advent of large heat recovery steam generators for
combined cycle plants, that are often required to endure
cyclic service, has highlighted that ASME Section I
addresses only primary stress limits and does not
penalize excessive wall thickness that might result in
high secondary stresses during thermal transients.
Furthermore, other codes that do address cyclic opera-
tion, such as ASME Section VIII, can be overly
conservative or provide methods of limited generality.
This paper discusses some of these topics in more detail,
examines some aspects of high temperature material
behavior that challenge the development of design rules
and identies areas that require further study.
Improving design methods in codes has many benets.
Firstly, it promotes consistent, safe, but not overly
conservative, designs. Secondly, a more rened design will
result in more efcient usage of material, a key issue as
future designs of ultrasupercritical boilers look to include
signicant amounts of expensive nickel-based alloys.
Thirdly, better design rules will aid implementation of rst
of a kind, advanced high-efciency power cycles that are
crucial as a least regrets strategy to conserve vital fossil
fuels and limit emissions by improving plant efciency [5].
The discussion in this paper focuses on high-temperature
thick-walled components such as headers, manifolds and
piping. These components often present the greatest
mechanical design challenges since they can experience
creep and fatigue, have thick sections, may be subject to
system loads and inevitably contain weldments. In
comparison, the design of thin-walled tubing may be
inuenced as much by environmental (oxidation and
corrosion) and fabrication limitations as by mechanical
considerations.
The paper begins by distinguishing between the design
and assessment of components.
2. Design and assessment
2.1. Design
The design process relies on simple equations and rules
to guide the selection of component dimensions and
material. To facilitate this, design methods separate the
calculation of stress in the component from the properties
(failure mode) of the material. A classic example of this is
the use of the reference stress method to estimate primary
stress. No material property data are required to calculate
the reference stress; it is simply calculated on the basis of
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50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 00s 10s
2400/1005/1005
167/540/540
3480/1005/1050 (psi/F/F)
240/540/565 (bar/C/C)
3600/1050/1085
250/565/585
4000/1085/1100
280/580/600
4000/1100/1150
280/600/620
4000/1165/1200
280/630/650
5400/1300/1325/1325
375/700/720/720
Mature technology Mature technology
Current
market
commercial
Market intro.
by ALSTOM & others
R&D ongoing
(COST/DOE)
in Europe and US
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subcritical supercritical
Fig. 2. Historical and projected future trends in plant steam conditions with relative indication of efciency improvement.
I.J. Perrin, J.D. Fishburn / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 85 (2008) 1421 16
geometry and applied loading. Similarly, no geometry or
loading data are required to obtain the allowable stress, it
is simply determined by the code organizations, as a result
of the analysis of laboratory tests and the application of
design margins, and tabulated as a function of material and
temperature. The computed reference stress is then
compared against strength (allowable stress) data to select
an appropriate material, or permissible use temperature.
Another feature of design codes is the use of typical
predened geometric forms for features such as nozzles and
end closures to further simplify the design process. This
promotes best practice and encourages standardization,
which can benet cost-effective design. However, this
design-by-rule approach can prove overly constraining if
the rules are too simple and unduly limit design freedom. A
good example within Section I of the ASME Boiler and
Pressure Vessel Code is the focus on primary stress, which
can result in overly conservative wall thickness at the
expense of tolerance to secondary stress. Also, there are
often inconsistent factors of safety between the rules for the
design of different features that can make it difcult to
establish which feature is life limiting.
To summarize, design seeks to establish the basic sizing
of components under given loads and only very basic,
readily available, material data are needed. Therefore, the
focus is on the structural response, with little consideration
for the subtleties in the material response. This is a key
distinction between design and assessment. The assessment
stage focuses on the interaction of structural behavior and
material, often under complex load histories, to understand
how this results in failure. This is briey discussed in the
next subsection.
2.2. Assessment
Assessment of components differs from design in that
the geometry, load history and material are well known
and the aim of the assessment is to accurately evaluate the
useful service life. This can include the reduction in the
thickness of components from effects such as corrosion and
erosion. For components operating at high temperature,
the focus is the complex, inelastic, material response, and
its interaction with the structure or loading. Such assess-
ments can, and are, used before a component enters service
to underwrite design, or as part of an integrity assessment
to establish whether a damaged component could remain
in service.
There has been considerable effort worldwide to improve
and validate life assessment procedures to justify continued
operation of an aging plant. Within the USA, the Fitness-
For-Service Procedure API579 [6] is often adopted for such
assessments. Although initially developed for the petro-
chemical industry, the next revision, presently under
development, is planned to be a joint ASME and API
post-construction code for the assessment of any pressure
equipment that has seen service. As with similar proce-
dures, assessments to API579 are at one of three levels:
level 1assessment based on design formulae; level 2
assessment based on service data and simplied analysis;
level 3detailed assessment using methods dened in
API579 or other accepted methods from, for example,
BS7910 [7] or R5 [8]. This level-based approach, which
seeks to take advantage of reassessment against the original
design, relies on good initial design rules that faithfully
bound the effects of geometry, loading, and material,
thereby providing a further driver to improve design
methods.
3. Design code enhancements
Design codes strive for simplicity, often at the expense of
generality. This, combined with some of the recent
developments in material technology, highlights the need
for some enhancements. Some of these are discussed below
to explain their origin, consequences, and some progress
toward resolving them.
3.1. Limitations of design-by-rule
Design-by-rule cannot deal with every possible cong-
uration, and may be unduly restrictive by preferring certain
constructions without appropriate justication. The use of
design-by-analysis, employing more elaborate analytical
techniques such as nite element models to determine limit
loads and reference stresses, can overcome the limitations
of design-by-rule for primary loading [9]. To this end, some
codes permit the use of limit load analysis, which can be
accomplished with ease using modern nite element
analysis software.
For combinations of primary and secondary loading, the
situation is more complex. Traditionally, this has been
accomplished with a Bree diagram that identies bound-
aries of shakedown, cyclic plasticity, and ratcheting.
However, such diagrams can only be constructed analyti-
cally for relatively simple geometry and load combinations.
Design-by-analysis offers some promise as evidenced by the
efforts of Ponter and coworkers [10] and Carter [11] to
develop practical solutions and to extend the reference
stress concept to cyclic loading. With these approaches,
only relatively simple nite element models need to be
constructed to capture the key geometric features and
loads. A difculty with this approach is the ability to deal
with stress singularities that are inevitably introduced by
the fabrication methods used to construct boiler compo-
nents, some examples of which are shown in Fig. 3. While
these singularities do not affect the determination of
primary load reference stress, or ratcheting boundaries,
they do complicate the calculation of the shakedown
boundary. Historically, design codes have avoided explicit
treatment of stress singularities by requiring shakedown
over a large portion (e.g. 80%) of a section, but this can be
difcult to interpret in the context of a nite element
model.
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I.J. Perrin, J.D. Fishburn / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 85 (2008) 1421 17
Issues can also arise due to differences in the design-by-
rule approach of various codes. In an increasingly
international market, this can mean that reference designs
developed to the rule-based approach of one code do not
satisfy the requirements of another.
3.2. Large factors of safety
In the design of boiler pressure parts, conservatism,
which translates to factor of safety, originates from a
number of sources, including design temperature, design
pressure, stress calculation, margin on material allowable
stress, and selection of a thicker wall than required (use of
the next largest standard pipe size and inherent difference
between minimum wall thickness and average wall thick-
ness). These sources of conservatism often reinforce each
other to produce a prohibitively large, inconsistent, or
indeterminate factor of safety. This complicates the
identication of life-limiting structural features that
should, perhaps, be subject to more detailed analysis.
The present edition of Section I of the ASME Boiler and
Pressure Vessel Code illustrates the inconsistency of wall
thickness calculation. Depending on certain conditions, one of
several different equations is selected to determine the wall
thickness, t, of a cylinder of external diameter, D, subject to
internal pressure, P, constructed from a material with
allowable strength, S. The most frequently used of these
equations (Eq. (1)) includes a variable, y, which is temperature
and material dependent with limited physical basis:
t
PD
2S 2yP
. (1)
To resolve this inconsistency, a new equation (Eq. (2))
has been proposed [12] as a single alternative to the several
equations that presently exist. This new equation is
essentially the Tresca reference stress for a pressurized
thick-walled cylinder and has been shown to correlate well
with available data [12], indeed better than the existing
formulae in Section I of the ASME Boiler and Pressure
Vessel Code. The new formula gives a consistent factor of
safety and is applicable in both the low- and high-
temperature regimes. Furthermore, it offers the potential
to reduce the wall thickness of tubing (if not governed by
environmental considerations) and reduce the wall thick-
ness of nickel-alloy headers and piping, which could
translate into a signicant saving of expensive material,
improving the economics of advanced ultrasupercritical
boilers (Fig. 4):
t
D
2
1 exp
P
S

. (2)
3.3. Inadequate treatment of weldments
Weldments are widely recognized as the life-limiting
feature of many components, yet the design rules in codes
provide little consideration for welds. Instead, weld
geometry and fabrication practice are controlled by other
sections of the codes. Presently, Section I of the ASME
Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code considers weldments to
have adequate high-temperature strength provided that
room temperature tensile and bend tests demonstrate that
the weldment is at least as strong as the base metal.
Extensive crossweld test data demonstrate signicant
strength reductions compared with the base metal in
elevated temperature service, e.g. [4]. Field experience with
type IV cracking raises further doubt about the validity of
the existing design rules. The situation is only likely to
become more pronounced with the increased use of
advanced creep strength-enhanced ferritic steels which
require control of the microstructure that can be difcult
to achieve in weldments, particularly those made in the
eld during boiler erection.
In reality, weldment strength is known to be a function
of several variables, including geometry, loading, and the
material properties of regions within the weldment. This is
a complex subject that is discussed further in a later section
of this paper.
3.4. Elastic follow-up in piping systems
Some of the issues concerning welds are aggravated in
the rare situation where the creep strength-enhanced steels
are combined with low alloy steels in high-temperature
steam line piping systems. In the US it is common practice
for designers of piping systems that operate in the creep
regime to eliminate cold spring (an expensive operation
that is not required by ASME B31.1 [13]) because
experience has demonstrated that it is not essential for
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 3. Schematic diagrams of some typical geometries containing stress
singularities that are permitted by the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel
Code.
I.J. Perrin, J.D. Fishburn / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 85 (2008) 1421 18
reliable long-term operation. The rationale for its elimina-
tion is that the stresses arising from thermal growth of the
piping system, which cold spring seeks to minimize, may be
classed as secondary stresses, which are assumed to relax
with modest creep strain accumulation. However, consider
the case in which a substantial portion of a piping system
constructed from creep strength-enhanced ferritic steel is
joined in series to a smaller portion of traditional low alloy
steel piping. The creep strength-enhanced steel, whose
thermal growth applies the loading, will not relax as
rapidly as the low alloy steel, thereby maintaining a high
level of axial or bending stress on attached low alloy
components. This elastic follow-up concentrates the
accumulation of creep strain in the low alloy steel.
Such a situation can be aggravated when an ASME code
compliant transition is made between a relatively thick
component fabricated from a low alloy steel and a
relatively thin component fabricated from a creep
strength-enhanced steel, particularly where the weld ller
metal is closer in chemical composition to the low alloy
steel. In this situation, the axial stresses at the thin end of
the weldment, resulting from expansion of the piping
system, are approximately the same as those acting on the
stronger component. Moreover, since the stronger alloy
constitutes a much larger portion of the total system,
particularly in comparison to the weld, little change will
occur in the forces imposed upon the joint, irrespective of
the deformation of the weldment. As a result, a large
primary load, much larger than anticipated by the design
code, is imposed on a section that is signicantly thinner
than it would have been if the system had been fabricated
using only the lower strength alloy. It is suspected that
these disadvantageous effects conspired to cause the
premature failure of a piping-to-valve girth weld in the
main steamline piping at a combined cycle facility [14].
This anomaly, although rare and conned to a particular
set of circumstances that result from the differing creep
rates of traditional low alloy steels and the creep strength-
enhanced steels, is one of which designers need to be aware
and which codes need to address. Perhaps the most
effective way to deal with this issue is to require the use
of cold spring during erection of the piping system to
minimize expansion-induced stresses at operating condi-
tions. An alternative approach would be to treat stresses
induced by thermal expansion as primary rather than
secondary stresses, with all of the technical and nancial
consequences associated with such an approach.
3.5. Unsteady loading not considered
The lack of methods within Section I of the ASME
Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code to deal with cyclic loading
has been highlighted by the recent trend for large combined
cycle plants. These employ heat recovery steam generators
to capture the exhaust heat from gas turbines. The
economics of plant operation, driven by the price of
natural gas, and the ability of the gas turbine to startup
rapidly, favor these plants for cyclic operation. Another
trend foreseen to place demand on conventional steam
plant to cycle is renewable energy, which uctuates in
output, often unpredictably.
At present, the basic philosophy of Section I of the
ASME Code is to conservatively specify wall thickness to
limit primary stress. This can inadvertently result in high
secondary stresses and decrease fatigue tolerance. Calcu-
lating the magnitude of secondary stresses can be complex
ARTICLE IN PRESS
0.75
0.8
0.85
0.9
0.95
1
1.05
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Pressure / Allowable Stress
T
h
i
c
k
n
e
s
s

R
a
t
i
o

(
p
r
o
p
o
s
e
d
/
p
r
e
s
e
n
t
)
Reduced thickness
with proposed
Pipe, y=0.4
Tube
Fig. 4. Chart showing the proportional decrease in wall thickness associated with the use of the new equation for wall thickness calculation of pressurized
cylindrical components. Curves are shown for tubing and pipe with a y value of 0.4 (corresponding to nickel-based alloys at elevated temperature).
I.J. Perrin, J.D. Fishburn / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 85 (2008) 1421 19
since they are a result of thermal transients that might not
be well dened at the design stage or arise from complex
expansion mismatches between pressure part assemblies.
As a result, screening criteria are essential. Simply, these
can take the form of basic rules that dene limiting
temperature differentials beyond which some fatigue
assessment must be performed (e.g. ASME Section VIII,
Division 2, AD-160 [1]). Ideally, these should be augmen-
ted with methods to rapidly establish boundaries of
component behavior (shakedown, cyclic plasticity and
ratcheting) as a guide to margins against cyclic failure
modes [10,11].
With such an approach, the potential exists to develop
rational methods for creepfatigue interaction. Such
methods might also distinguish problems that essentially
result in cyclic creep from those in which creep and
fatigue truly interact. As discussed earlier, some progress
has been made in this area, but practical challenges remain,
such as coping with geometric features that create stress
singularities.
This discussion of needed enhancements has identied
many topics that require further development. One in
which the materials and structural mechanics communities
must work together is design rules for weldments. This is
discussed further in the next section and leads to the
important topic of multiaxial creep rupture.
4. Weldments
Weldments are crucial for the construction of boilers in
which many miles of tubing, headers and piping must be
joined. The preceding discussion has identied welds as a
life-limiting component and highlighted the overly simplis-
tic approach to weld acceptance adopted by the ASME
Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. The principal complexity
with weldments is the differing creep strength of the base
metal, weld metal, and the graduated microstructure of the
heat-affected zone (HAZ) which, when combined with the
geometry and loading, results in differing amounts of stress
redistribution from weaker to stronger zones. For example,
within a circumferential girth (butt) weld in a pressurized
pipe, approximate hoop strain compatibility exists across
the weld, which allows weak zones such as the intercritical
(type IV) region to shed load to a stronger surrounding
material. If an axial (system) load acts on the weld, then
each of the weldment zones is loaded more directly and
cannot shed load as easily, often resulting in a reduced
creep rupture life, as evidenced by crossweld tests.
The use of weld strength reduction factors derived from
crossweld tests has been proposed for design. This,
however, fails to appropriately capture the effect of weld
geometry and loading, and so is likely to be overly
conservative when constrained deformation exists within
the weld. An alternate approach is that suggested in R5 [8],
in which a reference stress is obtained for the weldment by
performing a limit analysis with the yield strength of each
of the constituent weld zones proportionate to the ratio of
creep strength of that zone to the base metal. This captures
most of the important effects (geometry, loading, and
material), but relies on knowledge of the creep strength of
the weldment zones. Such information is rarely available
for life assessment studies, let alone design. Nevertheless,
the approach has merit and perhaps, with the use of
bounding strength ratios for material classes (undermatch-
ing or overmatching weld metals), a practical design
approach could be formulated.
The redistribution of stress within the weldment creates
multiaxial stress states that can also affect the creep rupture
life. Generally, codes attempt to avoid explicit treatment of
multiaxial states of stress by adopting predened geome-
tries with moderate stress concentrations and by permitting
only the use of materials with large creep ductility, thereby
giving an inherent ability to redistribute stress without risk
of ductility exhaustion and local cracking. However,
experience has shown that weldments, although possessing
adequate ductility for the weld ller metal, often have
regions within the HAZ, which exhibit apparently low
macroscopic ductility due to local microstructure and
multiaxial stress states. The local creep ductility and the
multiaxial stress rupture criterion of the weld zones can be
employed in detailed nite element continuum damage
mechanics simulations of weldment failure but these
simulations demand signicant computational resources
and copious material data [15]. Such calculations are
impractical for design; however, they highlight the im-
portance of the multiaxial stress rupture criterion, which is
discussed further in the next section.
5. Multiaxial creep rupture
Creep rupture under multiaxial states of stress has been
studied extensively but some fundamental questions
remain. From the perspective of design, the multiaxial
stress rupture criterion is not explicitly invoked during
design calculations but is often implicit in the equation
used to estimate the stress in the component. For thick-
walled pressurized components, most procedures adopt the
mean diameter hoop stress, which provides an approximate
measure of the average principal stress in the wall of a
pressurized pipe. This recognizes the importance of
principal stress in controlling creep damage and rupture
life, rather than von-Mises stress which is understood to
control creep deformation.
More generally, other components of stress have been
reported to inuence creep rupture life [16] and various
measures of multiaxiality have been developed to describe
this. For example, Cane [17] (and others) propose the use
of the ratio of principal stress, s
I
, to von-Mises stress, s
e
,
whereas Cocks and Ashby [18] (and others) propose the use
of the ratio of hydrostatic stress, s
m
, to von-Mises stress,
s
e
. In practice, both measures of multiaxiality may be
important for creep life prediction. At high stress levels
with large creep ductility, ductile void growth occurs and
the s
m
/s
e
criterion may be valid whereas at low stress
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I.J. Perrin, J.D. Fishburn / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 85 (2008) 1421 20
levels, where diffusional growth of grain boundary cavities
under the inuence of tensile stress controls, the s
I
/s
e
criterion may be more appropriate.
Experience with the formation of creep damage in
ferritic steels that have seen extensive service provides
evidence that cavities develop normal to the direction of
maximum principal stress. Browne et al. [19] summarize a
variety of multiaxial creep rupture tests that show
increasing dependence of rupture life on maximum
principal stress as the stress magnitude is reduced. There-
fore, principal stress is perhaps an appropriate criterion for
design where distinguishing which criterion is appropriate
is important because different combinations of s
m/
s
e
and
s
I
/s
e
can be developed in components.
A problem is that much of the testing to determine the
multiaxial stress rupture criterion has been performed on
circumferentially notched bars where, as notch severity
increases, s
m/
s
e
and s
I/
s
e
rise proportionately [20]. This
makes it difcult to derive the appropriate multiaxial stress
rupture criterion from a notched bar test alone. Other
multiaxial test types are more difcult to perform (require
specialized testing machines) or are problematic to inter-
pret (e.g. large strain effects). Moreover, much of the
testing that has been performed under multiaxial states of
stress is at relatively short times and high stresses or
temperatures which, given the different manner of material
degradation at these conditions compared with that at
lower stresses, may well be inappropriate for application to
design rules.
Obviously further work is needed to underpin the
present understanding, again requiring collaborative ef-
forts between the materials and structural mechanics
communities.
6. Closure
Codes for the design of boilers and pressure vessels, such
as ASME Section I, have served the industry well, as
evidenced by an excellent safety record. The authors of
these codes ingeniously simplied a complex subject and
provided a set of practical, workable, rules. These rules
remain valid for modern boiler and pressure vessel design,
but the latest generations of material technology and boiler
designs highlight a number of needs for enhancements to
meet future anticipated needs, some of which have been
explained in this paper. Solutions, or at least partial
solutions such as design-by-analysis, exist to many of these
shortcomings but translating these to practical rules
requires further work to ensure wide applicability and
robustness.
To accomplish this requires a thorough understanding of
both material behavior and structural response, high-
lighting the need for the materials and structural mechanics
communities to work together. As operating conditions
become more aggressive, this should optimize the use of the
necessary advanced, expensive alloys and reduce compo-
nent wall thickness, facilitating pressure part manufacture
and enhancing operational exibility without compromis-
ing safety.
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ARTICLE IN PRESS
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