Life Prediction of High Temperature Welded Component by Skeletal Point Rupture Stress

At the present time, as the steam conditions and capability of the supercritical power unit increasing, the unit reliability is an important factor for the unit efficiency. High temperature, thick walled pipes are widely used in power plants and chemical plants. In this paper, life of the welded joint was predicted by the methods of skeletal point (SP) rupture stress rupture stress, which was calculated by finite element method (FEM). For the life prediction of welded component, the continuum damage mechanics was employed too. The life prediction of the welded joint by SP rupture stress was compared with the life prediction by the method of continuum damage mechanics (CDM). The research results showed that the two predicted methods were consistent. So, it can be concluded that the SP rupture stress can be used for predicting life of the high temperature welded component. The SP rupture stress method was used conveniently for the structure of power plant or other high temperature components.