Materials Technical Group Meeting

Materials issues in creep service

Tuesday 27 November 2007

The Welding and Joining Society hosted the anticipated Materials Technical Group Meeting on Tuesday 27 November 2007 at TWI Cambridge Conference Centre and captured the most recent developments and issues in the field of creep, through presentations and discussions.

Left to right: Chairman, Dr. Peter Boothby (Advantica Tech), Adam Marshall (Metrode), Les Buchanan (Doosan Babcock), Barrie Spafford (TWI), John Rothwell (TWI), Prof Harry Bhadeshia (Cambridge University), Rod Vanstone (Alstom Power Technology) and Secretary, Dr. Cem Selcuk (TWI)

After a warm welcome and introduction by Chairman Dr. Peter Boothby, the event commenced with a keynote technical presentation by Prof. Harry Bhadeshia from Cambridge University, on the failure to achieve the 650 °C target in ferritic creep resistant steels. This included a clear and concise résumé of important thermodynamic & kinetic mechanisms. The ultimate message to the audience was the need for increased co-operation between industry and academia, including sharing of results, to avoid unnecessary testing and work duplication. A more co-ordinated and collective approach would also allow problems to be tackled more promptly.

After a stimulating question & answer session, Barrie Spafford from TWI followed with a talk on creep from a user's perspective. This contained plenty of practical hints and examples of creep failure through informative illustrations, which were much appreciated by the audience.

The final speaker of the morning session was Adam Marshall from Metrode Products, one of UK's leading consumable manufacturers, who delivered a critical review of the subject looking into some events in the life of welds at high temperatures.

Following lunch, during which Linda Dumper from TWI Library & information services, demonstrated the many features of the TWI website including e.g Weldasearch, the afternoon session commenced with a presentation by Les Buchanan from Doosan Babcock on constraints in boiler design from high temperature materials. This included an overview of the issues in boiler design related to limitations of materials in currently in use.

The meeting continued with a presentation by Rod Vanstone who demonstrated the latest work of Alstom Power Technology Centre on developments in materials for advanced steam turbines.

The event came to a close with a final summary by John Rothwell on advances in welded creep resistant 9-12%Cr steels including highlights from the ongoing research development and technology work at TWI.

The successful programme, with presentations by experts and pioneers from industry and academia, presented an ideal opportunity for sharing information on new research and development. With delegates from UK and across the channel, the meeting also provided a useful forum for networking and gaining an insight, for newcomers to the industry, students and graduates alike.

The shortcoming of existing materials and processes is identified by the need to develop an innovative approach and alternative thinking for overcoming the problems of today and exploring materials and processes of the future. This will require enhanced use of modelling and cross-link interdisciplinary design solutions with an aim to gain full control of the process-structure-property relationships. It was once again clear that this could only be achieved by effective collaboration amongst the science and engineering community.

For further information on the event and future Materials Technical Group Meetings, please contact Secretary, Dr. Cem Selcuk at the Ferritic Steels section of the Metallurgy, Corrosion and Surfacing Technology Group.

Dr. Cem Selcuk (FER/MCS - TWI)
December 2007