| 1. |
- Abel, I, et al.
(author)
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Overview of the JET results with the ITER-like wall
- 2013
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In: Nuclear Fusion. - : IOP Publishing. - 1741-4326 .- 0029-5515. ; 53:10, s. 104002-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Following the completion in May 2011 of the shutdown for the installation of the beryllium wall and the tungsten divertor, the first set of JET campaigns have addressed the investigation of the retention properties and the development of operational scenarios with the new plasma-facing materials. The large reduction in the carbon content (more than a factor ten) led to a much lower Z(eff) (1.2-1.4) during L- and H-mode plasmas, and radiation during the burn-through phase of the plasma initiation with the consequence that breakdown failures are almost absent. Gas balance experiments have shown that the fuel retention rate with the new wall is substantially reduced with respect to the C wall. The re-establishment of the baseline H-mode and hybrid scenarios compatible with the new wall has required an optimization of the control of metallic impurity sources and heat loads. Stable type-I ELMy H-mode regimes with H-98,H-y2 close to 1 and beta(N) similar to 1.6 have been achieved using gas injection. ELM frequency is a key factor for the control of the metallic impurity accumulation. Pedestal temperatures tend to be lower with the new wall, leading to reduced confinement, but nitrogen seeding restores high pedestal temperatures and confinement. Compared with the carbon wall, major disruptions with the new wall show a lower radiated power and a slower current quench. The higher heat loads on Be wall plasma-facing components due to lower radiation made the routine use of massive gas injection for disruption mitigation essential.
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| 2. |
- Romanelli, F, et al.
(author)
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Overview of the JET results
- 2011
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In: Nuclear Fusion. - : IOP Publishing. - 1741-4326 .- 0029-5515. ; 51:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Since the last IAEA Conference JET has been in operation for one year with a programmatic focus on the qualification of ITER operating scenarios, the consolidation of ITER design choices and preparation for plasma operation with the ITER-like wall presently being installed in JET. Good progress has been achieved, including stationary ELMy H-mode operation at 4.5 MA. The high confinement hybrid scenario has been extended to high triangularity, lower ρ*and to pulse lengths comparable to the resistive time. The steady-state scenario has also been extended to lower ρ*and ν*and optimized to simultaneously achieve, under stationary conditions, ITER-like values of all other relevant normalized parameters. A dedicated helium campaign has allowed key aspects of plasma control and H-mode operation for the ITER non-activated phase to be evaluated. Effective sawtooth control by fast ions has been demonstrated with3He minority ICRH, a scenario with negligible minority current drive. Edge localized mode (ELM) control studies using external n = 1 and n = 2 perturbation fields have found a resonance effect in ELM frequency for specific q95values. Complete ELM suppression has, however, not been observed, even with an edge Chirikov parameter larger than 1. Pellet ELM pacing has been demonstrated and the minimum pellet size needed to trigger an ELM has been estimated. For both natural and mitigated ELMs a broadening of the divertor ELM-wetted area with increasing ELM size has been found. In disruption studies with massive gas injection up to 50% of the thermal energy could be radiated before, and 20% during, the thermal quench. Halo currents could be reduced by 60% and, using argon/deuterium and neon/deuterium gas mixtures, runaway electron generation could be avoided. Most objectives of the ITER-like ICRH antenna have been demonstrated; matching with closely packed straps, ELM resilience, scattering matrix arc detection and operation at high power density (6.2 MW m-2) and antenna strap voltages (42 kV). Coupling measurements are in very good agreement with TOPICA modelling. © 2011 IAEA, Vienna.
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| 3. |
- Alipour, Yousef
(author)
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High temperature corrosion in a biomass-fired power boiler : Reducing furnace wall corrosion in a waste wood-fired power plant with advanced steam data
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The use of waste (or recycled) wood as a fuel in heat and power stations is becoming more widespread in Sweden (and Europe), because it is CO2 neutral with a lower cost than forest fuel. However, it is a heterogeneous fuel with a high amount of chlorine, alkali and heavy metals which causes more corrosion than fossil fuels or forest fuel.A part of the boiler which is subjected to a high corrosion risk is the furnace wall (or waterwall) which is formed of tubes welded together. Waterwalls are made of ferritic low-alloyed steels, due to their low price, low stress corrosion cracking risk, high heat transfer properties and low thermal expansion. However, ferritic low alloy steels corrode quickly when burning waste wood in a low NOx environment (i.e. an environment with low oxygen levels to limit the formation of NOx). Apart from pure oxidation two important forms of corrosion mechanisms are thought to occur in waste environments: chlorine corrosion and alkali corrosion.Although there is a great interest from plant owners to reduce the costs associated with furnace wall corrosion very little has been reported on wall corrosion in biomass boilers. Also corrosion mechanisms on furnace walls are usually investigated in laboratories, where interpretation of the results is easier. In power plants the interpretation is more complicated. Difficulties in the study of corrosion mechanisms are caused by several factors such as deposit composition, flue gas flow, boiler design, combustion characteristics and flue gas composition. Therefore, the corrosion varies from plant to plant and the laboratory experiments should be complemented with field tests. The present project may thus contribute to fill the power plant corrosion research gap.In this work, different kinds of samples (wall deposits, test panel tubes and corrosion probes) from Vattenfall’s Heat and Power plant in Nyköping were analysed. Coated and uncoated samples with different alloys and different times of exposure were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and light optical microscopy (LOM). The corrosive environment was also simulated by Thermo-Calc software.The results showed that a nickel alloy coating can dramatically reduce the corrosion rate. The corrosion rate of the low alloy steel tubes, steel 16Mo3, was linear and the oxide scale non-protective, but the corrosion rate of the nickel-based alloy was probably parabolic and the oxide much more protective. The nickel alloy and stainless steels showed good corrosion protection behavior in the boiler. This indicates that stainless steels could be a good (and less expensive) alternative to nickel-based alloys for protecting furnace walls.The nickel alloy coated tubes (and probe samples) were attacked by a potassium-lead combination leading to the formation of non-protective potassium lead chromate. The low alloy steel tubes corroded by chloride attack. Stainless steels were attacked by a combination of chlorides and potassium-lead.The Thermo-Calc modelling showed chlorine gas exists at extremely low levels (less than 0.1 ppm) at the tube surface; instead the hydrated form is thermodynamically favoured, i.e. gaseous hydrogen chloride. Consequently chlorine can attack low alloy steels by gaseous hydrogen chloride rather than chlorine gas as previously proposed. This is a smaller molecule than chlorine which could easily diffuse through a defect oxide of the type formed on the steel.
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| 4. |
- Alipour, Yousef, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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The analysis of furnace wall deposits in a low-NOx waste wood-fired bubbling fluidised bed boiler
- 2012
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In: VGB PowerTech Journal. - : VGB Power Tech. - 1435-3199. ; 92:12, s. 96-100
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Increasing use is being made of biomass as fuel for electricity production as the price of natural wood continues to rise. Therefore, more use is being made of waste wood (recycled wood). However, waste wood contains more chlorine, zinc and lead, which are believed to increase corrosion rates. Corrosion problems have occurred on the furnace walls of a fluidised bed boiler firing 100 % waste wood under low-NOx conditions. The deposits have been collected and analysed in order to understand the impact of the fuel.
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| 5. |
- Alipour, Yousef, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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The effect of a nickel alloy coating on the corrosion of furnace wall tubes in a waste wood fired power plant
- 2014
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In: Materials and corrosion - Werkstoffe und Korrosion. - : Wiley. - 0947-5117 .- 1521-4176. ; 65:2, s. 217-225
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The use of waste wood as a fuel in power plants is becoming more widespread in Europe, because it is a renewable energy source with a lower cost than forest fuel. However it is more corrosive than coal and corrosion problems have arisen in the furnace wall area of a low NOx heat and power boiler. The furnace walls are made of a low alloy steel which has been coated in some parts with a nickel alloy to reduce corrosion. In this work, furnace tubes coated with a nickel alloy were compared to the uncoated tubes of the low alloy steel 16Mo3 after 3 years of exposure in the boiler. The nickel alloy coating and uncoated material were also compared with more controlled testing on a corrosion probe lasting for about 6 weeks. The corrosion rates were measured and the samples were chemically analysed by SEM/EDS/WDS and XRD methods. The corrosive environment was also modelled with Thermo-Calc software. The corrosion rates measured from the probe and tube samples of 16Mo3 agreed well with each other, implying linear corrosion rates. The results also showed that the use of nickel alloy coatings changes the corrosion mechanism, which leads to a dramatic reduction in the corrosion rate. The results are discussed in terms of the corrosion mechanisms and thermodynamic stability of the corrosion products.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Ekström, Madeleine, 1984-
(author)
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Development of a ferritic ductile cast iron for improved life in exhaust applications
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Due to coming emission legislations, the temperature is expected to increase in heavy-duty diesel engines, specifically in the hot-end of the exhaust system affecting components, such as exhaust- and turbo manifolds. Since the current material in the turbo manifold, a ductile cast iron named SiMo51, is operating close to its limits there is a need for material development in order to maintain a high durability of these components. When designing for increased life, many material properties need to be considered, for example, creep-, corrosion- and fatigue resistance. Among these, the present work focuses on the latter two up to 800°C improving the current material by additions of Cr, for corrosion resistance, and Ni, for mechanical properties. The results show improved high-temperature corrosion resistance in air from 0.5 and 1wt% Cr additions resulting in improved barrier layer at the oxide/metal interface. However, during oxidation in exhaust-gases, which is a much more demanding environment compared to air, such improvement could not be observed. Addition of 1wt% Ni was found to increase the fatigue life up to 250°C, resulting from solution strengthening of the ferritic matrix. However, Ni was also found to increase the oxidation rates, as no continuous SiO2-barrier layers were formed in the presence of Ni. Since none of the tested alloys showed improved material properties in exhaust gases at high temperature, it is suggested that the way of improving performance of exhaust manifolds is to move towards austenitic ductile cast irons or cast stainless steels. One alloy showing good high-temperature oxidation properties in exhaust atmospheres is an austenitic cast stainless steel named HK30. This alloy formed adherent oxide scales during oxidation at 900°C in gas mixtures of 5%O2-10%H2O-85%N2 and 5%CO2-10%H2O-85%N2 and in air. In the two latter atmospheres, compact scales of (Cr, Mn)-spinel and Cr2O3 were formed whereas in the atmosphere containing 5%O2 and 10%H2O, the scales were more porous due to increased Fe-oxide formation. Despite the formation of a protective, i.e. compact and adherent, oxide scale on HK30, exposure to exhaust-gas condensate showed a detrimental effect in form of oxide spallation and metal release. Thus, proving the importance of taking exhaust-gas condensation, which may occur during cold-start or upon cooling of the engine, into account when selecting a new material for exhaust manifolds.
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| 8. |
- Henderson, Pamela, et al.
(author)
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A steam loop for materials testing at 600C in a biomass and waste fired boiler : results of corrosion testing
- 2010
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In: 9th Liege conference on Materials for Advanced Power Engineering 2010. - : Forschungszentrum Jülich GMbH. - 9783893366859 ; , s. 1140-1149
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A steam loop for corrosion testing was constructed in Esshete 1250 and attached to one of the superheaters in a 100 MWth bubbling fluidised bed (BFB) boiler. The loop raised the final steam temperature to about600°Cat 140 bar. A number of different test materials were welded into the loop for evaluation at low temperature (500°Csteam) and high temperature (600°Csteam). Their wall thicknesses were measured with a high resolution ultrasonic probe before and after exposure. A number of sections were examined metallographically after exposure. The steam loop was in service for one firing season (about 5500 h) and the fuel mixture was initially a biomass mix co-firing with 15% coal. However halfway though the firing season the coal was replaced with 15% packaging waste containing plastic and aluminium. The latter mixture (biomass and waste) was highly corrosive and accounted for most of the corrosion. The alloys with the highest Ni and Cr contents, Haynes230, AC66 and HR11N, showed negligible steam-side corrosion. The 11% chromium steel X20 and the nickel-base alloy HR11N were not tested at the higher steam temperature because of strength considerations. Regarding fireside corrosion at500°Csteam the alloys with the best corrosion resistance were Haynes 230, HR11N, AC 66 and HR3C followed by Esshete 1250 and TP347HFG. The corrosion rate of X20 was unacceptably high and is totally unsuitable for this fuel mix. At 600°C Haynes 230 showed the lowest corrosion rates, followed by TP 347 HFG, HR3C, AC66, and Esshete 1250. Large amounts of internal corrosion were seen.
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| 9. |
- Henderson, Pamela, et al.
(author)
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Combating corrosion in biomass and waste-fired plant
- 2010
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In: 9th Liege conference on Materials for Advanced Power engineering 2010. - : Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH. - 9783893366859 ; , s. 986-999
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Many biomass- or waste-fired plants have problems with high temperature corrosion especially if the steam temperature is greater than500°C. An increase in the combustion of waste fuels means that an increasing number of boilers have had problems. Therefore, there is great interest in reducing the costs associated with high temperature corrosion and at the same time there exists a desire to improve the electrical efficiency of a plant by the use of higher steam temperatures. Assuming that the fuel is well-mixed and that there is good combustion control, there are in addition a number of other measures which can be used to reduce superheater corrosion in biomass and waste fired plants, and these are described in this paper. These include the use of fuel additives, specifically sulphur-containing ones; design aspects like placing superheaters in less corrosive positions in a boiler, using tube shielding, a wider pitch between the tubes; operational considerations such as more controlled soot-blowing and the use of better materials.
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| 10. |
- Henderson, Pamela, 1957-, et al.
(author)
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Corrosion of superheaters at 600C steam in biomass-fired boilers
- 2011
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In: EuroCorr 2011. ; , s. 4656-
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A steam loop for corrosion testing was constructed in stainless steel and attached to one of the superheaters in a power station boiler which ran on a mixture of biomass and waste. The loop raised the final steam temperature to about600°Cat 140 bar and was in service for 5500 h. A number of different test materials were welded into the loop for evaluation. Their wall thicknesses were measured before and after exposure and a number of sections were examined metallographically after exposure to investigate steam-side oxidation and fire-side corrosion. The alloys with the highest Ni and Cr contents (over 30 and 20 wt% respectively) showed negligible steam-side oxidation. Regarding fireside corrosion a stainless steel containing 18%Cr and 11%Ni exhibited the second lowest corrosion rates, performing much better than all of the higher alloyed steels. The corrosion rate for this steel was not temperature sensitive and appeared to decrease as the temperature increased. Large amounts of internal or selective corrosion were seen in all the materials tested at 600°C steam.
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| 11. |
- Henderson, Pamela, et al.
(author)
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Preliminary experience with material testing at the oxyfuel pilot plant at Schwarzepumpe
- 2010
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In: 9th Liege conference on Materials for Advanced Power engineering 2010. - : Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH. - 9783893366859 ; , s. 1244-1259
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Several material related issues may arise from oxyfuel combustion of coal due to the presence of CO2 but also as an effect of the partial recirculation of the flue gas. Two examples are increased corrosion and carburisation which may limit steam data, hence limiting the efficiency.A number of corrosion tests, in both conventional air-firing and oxyfuel mode, have been made in Vattenfalls 30 MW oxyfuel pilot plant located in Schwarze Pumpe, Germany. Internally cooled corrosion probes, equipped with ferritic, austenitic, super austenitic steels as well as Ni-based and FeCrAl alloys, simulating superheaters, economisers and air preheaters were exposed for up to 1500 hrs.The analyses show an indication of higher material wastage in oxyfuel compared to air combustion especially at the lower exposure temperatures. This may be due to increased sulphur concentration in corrosion front, increased heat flux, carburisation or other preciptate formations on austenitic steels and Ni-based alloys.
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| 12. |
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| 13. |
- Viklund, Peter, et al.
(author)
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Corrosion of superheater materials in a waste-to-energy plant
- 2013
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In: Fuel processing technology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0378-3820 .- 1873-7188. ; 105:SI, s. 106-112
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A major drawback when generating electricity from waste-fired boilers is the rapid corrosion of critical components such as superheater tubes. In this work a number of commonly-used superheater materials have been exposed on internally cooled probes in a waste-fired grate boiler. The investigated materials are the ferritic steel 13CrMo44, the ferritic-martensitic steel HCM12A, the austenitic steels Super 304, 317L and Sanicro 28, and the nickel-base alloys Hastelloy C-2000 and Inconel 625. Short-term exposures (3 h) for analysis of deposit composition and initial corrosion, as well as long-term exposures (1550 h) to investigate corrosion rates and corrosion characteristics have been made. Analysis revealed a deposit dominated by CaSO4, KCl and NaCl, but also appreciable amounts of low melting salt mixtures such as ZnCl2-KCl, PbCl2-KCl, FeCl2-KCl and NaCl-NiCl2. Metal loss measurements showed unacceptably high corrosion rates for 13CrMo44, HCM12A and Super 304. The corrosion attack for these alloys was manifested by the formation of mixed metal chloride/metal oxide scales. A different type of behaviour was seen for the higher alloyed austenitic steels and nickel-base alloys, which were able to form a chromium-enriched oxide next to the metal. However, these alloys suffered from some localised pitting attack. The behaviour is explained by oxide dissolution in the molten salts that are present in the deposit.
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| 14. |
- Zaitlen, Noah, et al.
(author)
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Informed Conditioning on Clinical Covariates Increases Power in Case-Control Association Studies
- 2012
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In: PLoS Genetics. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1553-7404. ; 8:11
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Genetic case-control association studies often include data on clinical covariates, such as body mass index (BMI), smoking status, or age, that may modify the underlying genetic risk of case or control samples. For example, in type 2 diabetes, odds ratios for established variants estimated from low-BMI cases are larger than those estimated from high-BMI cases. An unanswered question is how to use this information to maximize statistical power in case-control studies that ascertain individuals on the basis of phenotype (case-control ascertainment) or phenotype and clinical covariates (case-controlcovariate ascertainment). While current approaches improve power in studies with random ascertainment, they often lose power under case-control ascertainment and fail to capture available power increases under case-control-covariate ascertainment. We show that an informed conditioning approach, based on the liability threshold model with parameters informed by external epidemiological information, fully accounts for disease prevalence and non-random ascertainment of phenotype as well as covariates and provides a substantial increase in power while maintaining a properly controlled falsepositive rate. Our method outperforms standard case-control association tests with or without covariates, tests of gene x covariate interaction, and previously proposed tests for dealing with covariates in ascertained data, with especially large improvements in the case of case-control-covariate ascertainment. We investigate empirical case-control studies of type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, age-related macular degeneration, and end-stage kidney disease over a total of 89,726 samples. In these datasets, informed conditioning outperforms logistic regression for 115 of the 157 known associated variants investigated (P-value = 1x10(-9)). The improvement varied across diseases with a 16% median increase in chi(2) test statistics and a commensurate increase in power. This suggests that applying our method to existing and future association studies of these diseases may identify novel disease loci.
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