High temperature corrosion in straw-fired power plants: Influence of steam/metal temperature on corrosion rates for TP347H

The corrosion in straw-fired boilers has been investigated at various straw-fired power plants in Denmark. Water/air-cooled probes, a test superheater and test sections removed from the actual superheater have been utilised to characterise corrosion and corrosion rates. This paper describes the corrosion rates measured for the TP347H type steel. The corrosion morphology at high temperature consists of grain boundary attack and selective attack of chromium. The corrosion rate increases with calculated metal temperature (based on steam temperature), however there is great variation within these results. In individual superheaters, there are significant temperature variations i.e. higher temperature in middle banks compared to the outer banks, higher temperature in leading tubes, which have a high impact on corrosion. In a single loop the assumption that heat uptake (and heat flux) is linear with respect to tube length is an oversimplification. It has been observed that corrosion is higher at certain areas of the loop, presumably due to the localised high heat flux. In addition, the corrosion rate was also seen to decrease from one year to the next, although steam temperatures were the same. The difference in the results could be traced back to a lower flue gas temperature on one side of the boiler. Although metal temperature is the most important parameter with respect to corrosion rate, flue gas temperature also plays an important role. Efforts to quantify the effect of flue gas temperature on corrosion rate are on going.