Ferritic power plant steels: remanent life assessment and approach to equilibrium

Abstract

The steels used in the power generation industry are almost always given a severe tempering heat treatment before they enter service. This might be expected to give them a highly stable microstructure which is close to equilibrium. In fact, they undergo many changes over long periods of time. This paper is a review of some of the methods which exploit the changes in order to estimate the life that remains in alloys which are only partly exhausted.