Engineering Failure Analysis 17 (2010) 328–333

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Engineering Failure Analysis

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engfailanal

Failure analysis on high temperature superheater InconelÒ 800 tube

J. Ahmad a, J. Purbolaksono b,*, L.C. Beng a
a
Kapar Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd, Jalan Tok Muda, Kapar 42200, Malaysia
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Km 7, Jalan Kajang-Puchong, Kajang 43009, Selangor, Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents failure analysis on a super alloy InconelÒ 800 superheater tube in
Received 18 May 2009 Kapar Power Station Malaysia. Visual inspection, microscopic examinations and creep
Received in revised form 9 June 2009 analysis utilizing available related data are carried out to evaluate the failure mechanism
Accepted 9 June 2009
and its root cause. The failed high temperature superheater (HTSH) tube was found
Available online 17 June 2009
snapped into two parts, heavily distorted shape and bent at several points. Microstructures
of the failed tube showed that creep crack initiated at both external and internal surfaces of
Keywords:
the tube and propagated as grain boundary creep cavities coalesced to form intergranular
Super-alloy tube
Failure analysis
cracks. The severe geometry of tube causing steam flow starvation is identified to have
Overheating caused increasing tube metal temperature resulting in overheating of the failed tube. Creep
Microstructure examinations rupture is revealed as the cause of failure of the superheater tube.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The investigation is carried out following a failure involving super-alloys InconelÒ 800 material of superheater tube in
Kapar Power Station Malaysia. Visual inspection, microscopic examinations and creep analysis utilizing available related
data are carried out to evaluate the failure mechanism and its root cause. Inconel 800 is categorized in the class of high-grade
austenitic steel and could withstand high temperature operation. However, failure of the InconelÒ 800 tube has occurred on
1 May 2008 at high temperature superheater upper bank tubes region. Prior to the failure, the boiler unit had been in service
for around 165,550 h. There was unplanned outage due to tube leakage at reheater region of the boiler unit on 24 February
2007. It was reported that boiler unit was returned into service and operating for around 9700 h since the last outage. The
failed tube has outer diameter of 57.1 mm and thickness of 6.8 mm. The chemical composition of InconelÒ 800 [1] is shown
in Table 1.

2. Visual inspections

On-site visual inspection revealed severe distortion of the failed tube (Fig. 1). The tube was also found bent at several
parts. The inspection also revealed missing portion of the failed tube, which was blown away at the time of failure. This por-
tion in length of 0.5 m was found resting on top of the HTSH lower bank tube region. Fig. 2 shows the discovered and missing
portions of the tube. It can be seen that a small area of this portion with dimension of 25 cm in length and 5 cm in width was
missing and could not be located.
The visual examination of the failed HTSH tube sample revealed the following features as:

– The tube failed by massive rupture with blown away of a portion of the tube leaving blunt edges at both tube ends.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 3 89212213; fax: +60 3 89212116.

E-mail address: judha@uniten.edu.my (J. Purbolaksono).

1350-6307/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engfailanal.2009.06.013
 J. Ahmad et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 17 (2010) 328–333 329

Table 1
Chemical composition of InconelÒ 800 (wt%) [1].

C Mn S Si Cr Ni Fe Cu Al Ti
0.08 1.2 0.015 0.5 21 35 Balance 0.7 0.6 0.5

Fig. 1. The severe distorted and bent tube on site.

Fig. 2. The discovered and missing portions by blown away at the time of failure.

– There was no sign of tube wall thinning.

– Outer and inner surfaces of the tube were free from scales and there was no sign of active corrosion either at outer and
inner surface of the tube.

The observation results certainly indicate that the failed tube had operated at extremely high temperature.

3. Creep analysis

The failed HTSH tube operated at average pressure of 138 bars with twice incidences of pressure disturbance/fluctuation
in 2 days time prior to the failure (as shown in yellow circles in Fig. 3). The fluctuations indicated that the tubes had severe
abnormal operation and might indicate signs of abnormal steam flow. Since the boiler unit had been in service for around
165,550 h, creep damage is identified to have caused failure of the superheater tube by creep rupture.
Creep damage analysis is carried out to show the dominant involvement of this mechanism on the failed HSTH tube. The
operating hoop stress for the average internal pressure of 13.8 MPa is 51.04 MPa. Diagram of Larsen–Miller parameter with
stress variation to rupture of InconelÒ 800 (API 530) [2] as shown in Fig. 4 is utilized to determine the rupture time. Both
330 J. Ahmad et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 17 (2010) 328–333

Fig. 3. Chart of the operating steam pressure in the last two days prior to failure from the monitoring device.

Fig. 4. Diagram of Larsen–Miller parameter with stress variation to rupture of InconelÒ 800 (API 530) [2].

average and minimum curves correlating stress variation and Larsen–Miller parameter are used. The minimum curve would
give a more conservative estimation.
The estimated hoop stress developed in the tube may be determined as.
ðr þ 2t Þ
rh ¼ p ð1Þ
t
 J. Ahmad et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 17 (2010) 328–333 331

where p is operational internal pressure; r and t are inner radius and wall thickness of the tube, respectively. In the Larson-
Miller method, time and temperature are related by the following equation [2]:
ðT þ 273ÞðC þ log tÞ ¼ P ð2Þ
where P is the Larson-Miller parameter; T is the temperature in °C; t is the service time in h; C is a constant equal to 15.
The operating temperature of 650 °C is initially used to estimate the rupture time. It can be seen from Table 2, the esti-
mated rupture time is more than 40 years (384,635 h) if the tube continually operates at temperature of 650 °C or below. In
the last 9700 h prior to failure or since the last outage, the failed tube likely experienced the increasing temperatures as re-
sult of steam flow starvation. For instance, if the tube operated at average operating temperature of 750 °C since the last out-
age, the creep rupture would definitely take place. The severe distorted tubes and bent shapes at several parts as shown in
Fig. 1 may impede steam flow inside the tube.
If the operating temperatures are greater than 650 °C, the average operating steam pressure (13.8 MPa) have already ex-
ceeded the maximum allowable stresses as specified in ASME Code [3] presented in Table 3 or the rupture allowable stress
shown in Fig. 4 (indicated by Line 2). It is believed that this condition has occurred for quite prolonged period of time.

4. Microscopic examinations

The microscopic examinations at various points of the failed HTSH tube show the following features as:

- At the failure region the metal structure revealed that numerous creep cracks initiated at both tube internal and external
surfaces of the tube and propagated as grain boundary creep cavities coalesced to form intergranular cracks (Figs. 5 and 6).
- At the vicinity of the failure region, the metal structure revealed evidence of creep rupture as indicated by lining of creep
cavities to form unconnected intergranular cracks (Fig. 7).

Both findings revealed that the failed HTSH tube had operated at elevated metal temperature for a quite prolonged period
of time prior to failure.

5. Discussion

The distorted and bent parts of the failed tube might be developed over prolonged period of time due to the increasing
tube metal temperature as result of restrictions by increasing foreign materials elsewhere inside the tube line. The thick-

Table 2
Estimated rupture time for different operating temperatures.

Temperature (°C) Average curve Minimum curve

LMP Rupture time (h) LMP Rupture time (h)
650 19,400 1043,322 19,000 384,635
675 19,400 291,162 19,000 110,203
700 19,400 86,763 19,000 33,669
725 19,400 27,471 19,000 10,916
750 19,400 9201 19,000 3740
775 19,400 3247 19,000 1348
800 19,400 1203 19,000 510
825 19,400 466 19,000 201
850 19,400 188 19,000 83
875 19,400 79 19,000 36

Table 3
The maximum allowable stress specified by ASME Code [3].

No. Temperature (°C) MPa No. Temperature (°C) MPa

1 316 84.1 12 621 64.1
2 343 82.1 13 649 51.0
3 371 80.7 14 677 40.7
4 399 78.6 15 704 32.4
5 427 76.5 16 732 26.2
6 454 75.2 17 760 20.7
7 482 73.8 18 788 16.5
8 510 72.4 19 816 13.1
9 538 71.0 20 843 10.3
10 566 69.6 21 871 8.3
11 593 69.0 22 899 6.9
332 J. Ahmad et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 17 (2010) 328–333

Fig. 5. Creep damages initiated at tube external surface (left) and the internal surface (right) and propagated as grain boundary creep cavities coalesced and
lined together to form intergranular cracks.

Fig. 6. Creep cavities at rupture regions coalesced at grain boundary and lined together to form intergranular cracks.

Fig. 7. Creep cavities at the vicinity of the rupture regions coalesced at grain boundary and lined together to form unconnected intergranular cracks.

lipped rupture of the failed tube indicated a form of damage by long-term overheating. Creep results in slow plastic defor-
mation and ultimate coalescence of micro cavities in metal during overheating [4]. Figs. 5–7 revealed evidences of creep
damage and rupture as indicated by lining of creep cavities to form intergranular cracks. Cocks and Ashby [5] described that
in polycrystalline metals subject to creep at elevated temperatures, the nucleation and growth of cavities to coalescence also
play a major role in the failure process. High temperature cavitation occurs mainly on the grain boundary facets normal to
the maximum principal tensile stress direction. Coalescence of the cavities causes micro cracks, and the final intergranular
creep rupture occurs as the micro cracks link up. Cyclic load operation could also worsen the situation in triggering the creep
cavities to be easily coalesced each other to form a micro crack. In the case of cyclic loading at elevated temperatures, both
creep damage and fatigue are likely failure mechanisms. In the range of very slow cycling, there will be sufficient time for
creep and diffusion mechanism to dominate resulting in intergranular creep fracture, whereas a typical transgranular fatigue
fracture tends to develop in the opposite situation of very rapid cycling [6]. Even though there were abnormal loading
 J. Ahmad et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 17 (2010) 328–333 333

fluctuations in the last two days prior to failure which might be leading to creep–fatigue interaction, however, the failure
mechanism of the superheater InconelÒ 800 tube is dominated by creep rupture.
Recommendation for identifying the regions having excessively distorted tubes should be considered in order to prevent a
similar failure in the future. Immediate actions need to be taken by removing the distorted parts and fitting the new parts.

6. Conclusions

Visual inspection, microscopic examinations and creep analysis utilizing available related data were carried out to inves-
tigate the failure cause of the InconelÒ 800 superheater tube. The findings revealed the following features as:

– Heavily distorted shape and bent at several points of the failed tube most likely impeded the steam flow resulting in
increasing of the tube metal temperature.
– The blunt edge ruptures of the failed tube indicated damage by long-term overheating.
– Results of the creep calculations indicated creep rupture have taken place.
– Metal structures confirmed failure of the tube by creep rupture over a relatively long-time process. They showed that
creep crack initiated and propagated as grain boundary creep cavities coalesced to form intergranular cracks.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Kapar Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd Malaysia and Universiti Tenaga National Malaysia for permis-
sion of utilizing all the facilities and resources during this study.

References

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2000.
[2] API Standard 530: p. 80, Copy RightÓ 2003 American Petroleum Institute.
[3] ASME international electronic stress table. Table 1B: The maximum allowable stress values for non-ferrous materials. Section II, Part D of The ASME
boiler and pressure vessel code, Copy RightÓ; 1998 ASME international.
[4] Port RD, Herro HM. The NALCO guide to boiler failure analysis. Nalco Chemical Company, McGraw-Hill Inc.; 1991.
[5] Cocks ACF, Ashby MF. On creep fracture by void growth. Prog Mater Sci 1982;27:189–244.
[6] Riedel H. Fracture at high temperatures. Berlin: Springer-Verlag; 1987.