Degradation Damage Evaluation of High Temperature Structural Components by Electrochemical Anodic Polarization Test

Abstract

The structural steels of power plant show the decrease of mechanical properties due to degradation such as temper embrittlement, creep damage and softening during long-term operation at high temper ature. The typical causes of material degradation damage are the creation and coarsening of carbides(M23C6, M6C) and the segregation of impurities(P, Sb and Sn) to grain boundary. It is also well known that material degradation induces the cleavage fracture and increases the ductile-brittle transition temperature of steels. So, it is very important to evaluate degradation damage to secure the reliable and efficient service condition and to prevent brittle failure in service. However, it would not be appropriate to sample a large test piece from in-service components. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a couple of new approaches to the non-destructive estimation technique which may be applicable to assessing the material degradation of the components with not to influence their essential strength. The purpose of this study is to propose and establish a new electrochemical technique for non-destructive evaluation of material degradation damage for Cr-Mo steels which is widely used in the high temperature structural components. And the electrochemical anodic polarization test results are compared with those of semi-nondestructive SP test.