COST

Domain Committee "Materials, Physical and Nanosciences"

COST Action 538

Start Date 06/09/2004
End Date 05/09/2008

High Temperature Plant Lifetime Extension

FINAL EVALUATION REPORT

This Report stems from the relevant Domain Committee.

It contains four parts:

I. Management Report prepared by the COST Office/Grant Holder

II. Scientific Report prepared by the Chair of the Management Committee of
the Action.
III. Evaluation Report prepared by the “ad hoc” Evaluation Panel, established
by the Domain Committee, and edited by the COST Office.
IV. DC General Assessment prepared by the Domain Committee

Appendices:

Confidentiality: the documents will be made available to the public via the COST Action web
page except for chapter II.D. Self evaluation and IV. DC General Assessment.

Executive summary of the Scientific Report (max.250 words):

This COST Action addressed the key challenges of i) condition / health monitoring, ii) degradation of material
properties, iii) development of materials / microstructural models for life time assessment (including repair) and iv)
improved and validated predictive life assessment tools which underpin the modern approach to plant life
extension (PLE).
Action 538 aimed to develop a more scientific foundation for PLE and provide more reliable methods focused
on the types of plant components relevant to the European Power Generation Industry. Work focused on
extending the lifetime of existing components made from conventional materials, with and without protective
coatings where appropriate. For each particular component, the most appropriate PLE method will comprise a mix
of measurement and predictive techniques, combined with a reliable database for the material systems involved.
A ‘toolbox’ comprising a diverse range of these techniques has been created by the Action and these have been
used in an integrated way to solve case study problems set by industry partners. Overall, the toolbox approach has
proven successful and will continue to be extended by the contributing partners through future separate and
collaborative research activities. The case studies clearly show, that while only a selection of power plant life
extension problems have been tackled, excellent progress has been made.
It is recommended that the COST approach be adopted in the future to address similar complex challenges.
 I. Management Report prepared by the COST Office/Grant Holder

I.A. COST Action Fact Sheet

• COST Action 538 – High Temperature Lifetime Extension

• Domain Materials, Physical and Nanosciences

• Action details:

Draft Mou: 223/04 Mou: 290/04

Start of Action: 06/09/2004 Entry into force: 16/06/2004

End of Action: 05/09/2008 CSO approval date: 04/12/2003

● Objectives

The main objective of the Action is to develop an innovative integrated toolbox of

predictive methods/models and targeted invasive and non-invasive measurement
techniques, improving the means for European industries to reliably quantify the
condition and remaining life of plant components in all types of conventional fossil,
biomass and waste-fired power plant.

• Signatories: list of countries and date of signature

Country Date Status Country Date Status Country Date Status

Belgium 16/06/2004 Confirmed Czech 16/06/2004 Confirmed Denmark 16/06/2004 Confirmed

Republic

Finland 23/09/2004 Confirmed France 06/10/2005 Confirmed Germany 06/08/2004 Confirmed

Italy 16/06/2004 Confirmed Lithuania 13/03/2006 Confirmed Netherlands 20/09/2004 Confirmed

Poland 06/09/2004 Confirmed Portugal 19/08/2005 Confirmed Slovakia 16/06/2004 Confirmed

Spain 15/06/2004 Confirmed Sweden 14/10/2004 Confirmed Switzerland 18/02/2005 Confirmed

United 16/05/2004 Confirmed

Kingdom

Total: 16

• Intentions to sign: list of countries and date

Country Date Status Country Date Status Country Date Status

Total: 0
Participating Institutions from non-COST countries:

Participating Institutions from non-COST countries

None

Management Commitee

Chair Vice Chair DC Rapporteur

Professor John OAKEY Professor JIRI SVEJCAR

Energy Technology Centre Fac.of Mechanical Engineering
Cranfield University BrnoUniversity of Technology
Cranfield Technicka 2
Bedford UK BRNO CZ
j.e.oakey@cranfield.ac.uk svejcar@fme.vutbr.cz

Contacts

MC Chair Science Officer: Administrative Officer:

Professor John OAKEY Ms. Caroline WHELAN Stephanie BEAULOYE

j.e.oakey@cranfield.ac.uk COST Office COST Office
cwhelan@cost.esf.org sbeauloye@cost.esf.org
+32 2 533 38 45

• Action Web site: http://www.cen-tech.sk/cost/

.
• Grant Holder:

• Working Groups:

►WG 1: “Condition Monitoring”

►WG 2: “Environmental Degradation and Protection”

►WG 3: “Microstructural Degradation”

►WG 4: “Modelling Of Mechanical Behaviour”

►WG 5: “Component Life Prediction”

I.B. Management Committee member list

Czech Republic

Mr. Josef CIZNER

MC Member
Research Centre Bechovice Bechovice 19011
Prague Czech Republic
cizner@svum.cz

France

Mr. Jean-Michel FRUND Mr. Alain FORESTIER

MC Member MC Member
N/A - Please update this record Route des CEA Saclay Bat 121 DEN/DSNI/Reacteurs 91191
Renardieres 77818 Moret-Sur-Loing France Gif-Sur-Yvette France
jean-michel.frund@edf.fr alain.forestier@cea.fr

Netherlands

Henk-Jan TEN HOEVE Dr. Stan MANDZIEJ

MC Member MC Member
Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium NLR Advanced Materials Analysis PO BOX 3751 7500
PO Box 153 8300 Emmeloord Netherlands Enschede Netherlands
hjth@nlr.nl 100422.3355@compuserve.com

Portugal

Mr. Antonio CORREIA DA CRUZ

MC Member
Instituto de soldadura e qualidade Av. Prof. Dr. Cavaco Silva 33/Taguspark 2780-994
Oeiras Portugal
accruz@isq.pt

Slovak Republic

Professor Jozef ZRNIK Professor Peter BERNASOVSKY

MC Member MC Member
Faculty of MetallurgyTechnical University of Kosice Industrial Institute of SRWelding Research Institute
Park Komenskeho 11 040 01 Racianska 71 832 59
Kosice Slovak Republic Bratislava Slovak Republic
jozef.zrnik@tuke.sk bernasovskyp@vuz.sk;
Spain

Professor Francisco Javier PEREZ TRUJILLO

MC Member
Facultad de Ciencias Quimicas Universidad Complutense de Madrid
28040 Madrid Spain
fjperez@quim.ucm.es

Sweden

Professor Rolf SANDSTROM Dr. Pamela HENDERSON

MC Member MC Member
Brinell CentreRoyal Institute of Technology Vattenfall Energysystem AB Box 528 15216
Brinellvagen 23 100 44 Stockholm Sweden Stockholm Sweden
rsand@kth.se pamela.henderson@vattenfall.com

United Kingdom

Dr. Derek ALLEN

MC Member
Alstom Power Technology Centre Cambridge Road, Whetstone
Leicester United Kingdom
derek.allen@power.alstom.com

Grant Holder

Executive Finance Officer Legal Representative

I.C. Overview activities and expenditure
Action 538 - budget from 06-sept-2004 to 31-déc-2008

Meetings
Meeting Type Date Place Paid part Cost Total
MC 28-avr-2005 Berlin (DE) 31 20178.42
Joint MC/WG 24-oct-2005 BADEN (CH) 35 25296.78
Workshop/Conference 13-mars-2006Bratislava (SK) 23 14218.79
Workshop/Conference 20-sept-2006Liege (BE) 35 23234.83
Others 30-nov-2006 Baden (CH) 11 6911.58
Workshop/Conference 10-mai-2007 Krakow (PL) 31 22599.4
Joint MC/WG 19-nov-2007 Milton Keynes (uk) 31 19035.47
Joint MC/WG 18-juin-2008 Milan (IT) 37 29946.62
Working Group 27-oct-2008 Darmstadt (DE) 9 4914.24
Final Evaluation Conference 08-déc-2008 Prague (CZ) 35 23820.86
190157

STSM
Beneficiary Date From To Cost Total
Mr Kristian Dahl 09-oct-2005 Lyngby (DK) Stockholm (SE) 1670
Dr Krzysztof Waclawiak 28-janv-2007Katowice (PL) Stockholm (SE) 2210
Mr Marek Gebura 13-avr-2008 Bratislava (SK) Darmstadt (DK) 2000
Ms Jana Veverkova 20-avr-2008 Leicester (uk) Milan (IT) 2500
Dr Krzysztof Waclawiak 28-sept-2008Katowice (PL) Cranfield (uk) 2420
10,800

Workshops
Title Date Place Cost Total
Environmental degradation and coating 24-oct-2005 Alstom (CH) 3,000
COST538 Internal Workshop 13-mars-2006Bratislava (SK) 2,500
Liege Conference 18-sept-2006Liege (BE) 8,475
MCommittee Meeting with all WG 10-mai-2007 Krakow (PL) 1,550
9th MC & Joint WG meeting 18-juin-2008 Milan (IT) 3,492
Joint WG meeting 27-oct-2008 Darmstadt (DE) 1,000
MC + WG 08-déc-2008 Prague (CZ) 3,000
23,017

General Support Grants

Title Date Cost Total
General 29-sept-2005 1,900
General 01-juil-2006 2,000
3,900

Schools
Type Date Place title Cost Total
0

Honoraria
Title Date Expert Cost Total
Steering Committee Meeting 10-déc-2008 BUCHANAN LES W. 250
250

Grant
Grant Holder Date Cost Total
0

Dissemination
Title Date Cost Total
0

228124
II. Scientific Report prepared by the Chair of the Management Committee of
the Action (same layout as in the Monitoring Progress Report)

II.A. Innovative Networking

Introduction
Electricity production across Europe is in a state of flux. There is an increasing emphasis on more
sustainable ways of meeting energy requirements and there is likely to be a shift to more renewable
forms of power generation. However, fossil fuels will maintain a dominant share within Europe as
renewable technologies are introduced over the next 50 years.

In the period to 2050, whilst new technologies are enabled, decisions must be made about extending
the life of existing fossil fuelled power stations or building new fossil fuelled power stations. As part
of an overall plant life management strategy practised by utilities to maintain and/or improve the
economic performance of fossil power plants, Plant Life Extension (PLE) is a key element (provided all
plant complies with European emissions standards). PLE aims to assess the actual condition of the
materials used for critical components so that an informed judgement can be made about remaining
life at the conditions expected during future operation, without leading to expensive, unpredictable
failure in service. As such, PLE is viewed as an on-going strategic tool needed to maintain the
competitive position of a power plant.

This COST Action addressed the following key challenges:

• Condition / health monitoring
• Degradation of material properties
• Developing materials / microstructural models for life time assessment (including repair)
• Improved predictive life assessment tools and validation

Action 538 aimed to develop a more scientific foundation for Plant Life Extension (PLE) and provide
more reliable PLE methods focused on the types of plant components relevant to the European
Power Generation Industry. Work focused on extending the lifetime of existing components made
from conventional materials, with and without protective coatings where appropriate. For each
particular component, the most appropriate PLE method will comprise a mix of monitoring and
predictive procedures, combined with a reliable database for the material systems involved.

The Action targeted extending the lifetime of existing components made from conventional materials
by the development of an ‘integrated toolbox’ comprising:-
• Advanced condition monitoring tools
• Improved lifetime prediction methods

The main objective of the Action was to develop an innovative ‘integrated toolbox’ of predictive
methods/models and targeted invasive and non-invasive measurement techniques, improving the
means for European industries to reliably quantify the condition and remaining life of plant
components in all types of conventional fossil, biomass and waste-fired power plant.

The specific objectives of this Action can be summarised as follows:

• To provide reliable techniques for both on-line and off-line feedback of data on the condition
of the critical components and the operating environment.
• To develop novel, accurate and validated life prediction methods, models and tools.
• To integrate the component condition feedback with newly developed models to provide an
accurate diagnostic set of tools to predict the remnant life of critical plant components.

COST 538 Achievements

COST Action 538 started in September 2004 and ran for 4 years, ending on 5th September 2008. Since
the last report, activity has focused on the completion of the Actions 4 main work packages which
were delivering the new assessment and prediction techniques and their selective implementation in
the 5th work package to validate the methods and prove their capabilities in addressing real, ex-
service problems. A full scientific report summarising the results from the whole Action is included as
an annex to this report.

The Action’s four main work packages (comprising 51 individual completed projects) have delivered a
wide range of new or extended capabilities across the wide range covered by the Action, from
corrosion and coatings to the creep behaviour of ferritic steels and superalloys. Examples are:-

Fireside corrosion models for low NOx and biomass co-fired boilers

Steam oxidation model

Corrosion monitoring techniques

NDE of damage evolution

Sensor coatings

Thermodynamic/kinetic modelling of mechanical behaviour and microstrucutres

Kinetics of coating-substrate microstructure evolution

Life modelling of bondcoat-TBC systems

Impact of manufacturing on oxidation and mechanical behaviour

Creep damage monitoring

High strain rate sensitivity creep testing

Optimisation of repair welding methods and life prediction

Stress/residual lifetime prediction including LICON

Residual stress measurements and guidelines

Multi-scale modelling of SX alloys

SX, Ni alloy and H230 microstructure evolution

Impact of repair and refurbishment on properties

This highlights the complexity of taking forward the high temperature plant life assessment
challenge. The work packages have been highly integrated, leading to significant improvements in
many of the above areas, as well as the generation of much new data. However, to be useful to
industry these new and extended capabilities must be harnessed in combinations suited to the
conditions found in service.

To demonstrate the value and prove the success of these capabilities, case studies have been
completed to test, and where possible validate, the new techniques and methods. The following
table summarises the nine case studies covering a wide range of components in conventional boiler
and gas turbine have been completed. The table highlights the strong industrial involvement in these
and the cross-WP activity required for their completion.

The case studies also show that whilst every problem on life extension of power plant has not been
solved, excellent progress has been made under the Action. The Action will have been truly
successful if some of the ideas and collaborations developed during the action, continue to grow and
be developed in the future, and are ultimately implemented on plant.
Title Work Package Case Study Owner
Boiler-related Case Studies
Modelling of In-Service Cracking at a Main Steam WP2 E.ON Engineering UK
Pipe Gland Steam Connection
Life Extension of Thick Section Modified 9Cr (Grade WP2 RWEnpower
91) Steel Components
Prediction of Deposit in Boilers WP1 Silesian Technical University
Gas Turbine-related Case Studies
Estimation of the temperature of an ex-service V94.3 WP1 RWEnpower
row 2 vane
Degradation of HA230. Transition Duct Case Study WP3 Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery
Microstructure degradation WP3 and WP4 AGH University of Science and
of ex-service Siemens CMSX-4 blades Technology
Mean Temperature Estimates at Critical Positions of WP3 Ansaldo
Ex-Service Components Through Base Metal
Microstructural Model
Mean operating temperature evaluation of IN738LC WP1 and WP3 CESI RICERCA
blades
Life assessment of uncooled GT blades after long WP3 VTT
term service

Spin-off and Follow-on Collaborations

Throughout the course of the Action a significant number of spin-off relationships have developed
between the partners and several new proposals have arisen. Due to the size and complexity of the
Action details of many of these have not been made available to the Management Committee, but it
is worth highlighting the following which have developed largely as a result of COST 538:
• the development of the EuMat Technology Platform, with its ‘Energy Materials’ working group
being led by Prof Oakey; all COST 538 partners are members
• two major large EU FP7 projects, ‘H2-IGCC’ which is addressing advanced H2-enriched syngas
combustion in gas turbines (started Oct ’09) and ‘NextGenPower’ which is addressing the
materials and manufacturing challenges of the next generation of pulverised coal power plants

II.B. Inter-disciplinary Networking

The case studies described above have all involved substantial inter-disciplinary working, as well as
working across the academic-industry boundary. These case studies have shown that working
collectively in a COST Action can effectively combine the skills from the many strong research groups
from around Europe in high temperature materials, to provide a greatly enhanced problem solving
capability compared to that of any of the individual partners alone.

II.C. New Networking

New members were accepted into the Action throughout its operation, provided their inputs either
added value or extended existing tasks, and their inputs were equitable. Examples are the inclusion
of projects from KEMA, EMPA and VTT during 2007.

This large Action, involving more than 50 individual projects, included a wide range of participants
from different stages of their careers. Throughout the course of the Action some 136 individuals have
been involved either in the working groups or the management committee, of which 12% were
female and 20 were early stage researchers, many of whom were the prime contacts for their
organisation towards the end of the Action.

The Action’s complexity led to its research activity programme evolving over the first two years,
during which time only one of the Action’s ESR’s participated in a STSM. In the final two years 5
further STSMs took place, one of which was fully funded by the partners involved. Other STSMs were
planned but insufficient funds were available for them to take place. A training school was also
discussed in detail during 2007/2008 but this could not be arranged within the timeframe of the
Action due to the delays with testing programme as a result of materials supply problems, and could
not be arranged later due to budget restrictions.

The Action included technical contributions from 16 COST countries, with researchers from Ukraine
participating for a period on modelling alloy mechanical behaviour; problems with visa applications
restricted their further involvement.

The Action has been highly active in publishing its research, primarily through the on-going series of
Materials for Advanced Power Engineering Conferences held in Liege. 32 related papers were
published at the 2006 conference with a further 30 accepted for the next in the series, scheduled for
September 2010. Of these at both conferences many were also invited oral presentations. In
addition, the Action has been publicised many times through other conferences and journals, 7 of
which are referred to in the Annex (a detailed analysis of this is still on-going).

As indicated above, many of this COST Action’s participants have been successful in developing on-
going research projects with significant levels of funding (tens of €million), and further collaborative
projects between the partners remain under active discussion.

III. DC General Assessment

The main objective of this Action was to develop an innovative integrated toolbox of predictive
methods/models and targeted invasive and non-invasive measurement techniques, improving the
means for European industries to reliably quantify the condition and remaining life of plant
components in all types of conventional fossil, biomass and waste-fired power plant.
Although not all the items of this demanding programme have been accomplished, the toolbox
approach adopted in this Action has proved to be successful and will continue to be extended by the
contributing partners through future separate and collaborative research activities. The integration
of individual toolbox component techniques to answer specific industrial questions has been
demonstrated through the use of case studies, identified by the Action’s industrial partners. These
case studies have shown that working collectively in a COST Action can combine the skills from many
strong research groups from around Europe in high temperature materials, to provide a greatly
enhanced problem-solving capability compared to that of any of the individual partners alone.

Despite some partial problems (such as occasional belated submission of required documents to the
Cost Office, due to the Chair of Action being stretched to the capacity), Chair of Action) it can be said
that the MC coordinated the Action very effectively, as demonstrated by the case studies , the
amount of collaborative work and the many links between work packages. A certain weak point can
only be seen in that insufficient attention evidently devoted to organizing the Short-Term Scientific
Missions.