IMPULSE - Advanced Industrial Manufacture of Next-Generation MARBN Steel for Cleaner Fossil Plant

Completed

Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electric power conversion)
Fossil Fuels: Oil Gas and Coal(Coal, Coal combustion)
Fossil Fuels: Oil Gas and Coal(Oil and Gas, Oil and gas combustion)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Metallurgy and Materials)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr M Jepson
Inst of Polymer Tech and Materials Eng
Loughborough University

Standard

EPSRC

01 March 2016

23 August 2019

42 months

£263,811

Manufacturing

East Midlands

Energy : Energy

Dr M Jepson, Inst of Polymer Tech and Materials Eng, Loughborough University

Professor RC Thomson, Inst of Polymer Tech and Materials Eng, Loughborough University

NB Grants EP/N509978/1, EP/N509991/1 and EP/N509942/1 are linked

IMPULSE will work with a novel "MARBN" high temperature steel, recently developed in the TSB funded project "IMPACT" and shown to offer capability for an increase in steam power plant temperature of 25 degrees C. IMPULSE, whose consortium includes most IMPACT members together with new pipe, welding and innovative research partners, will take MARBN from the laboratory on to full-scale industrial manufacture of ingot castings, pipework, and weldments. This will improve efficiency and reliability of current and future steel-based steam power plant, and thus increase security of supply and reduce cost and carbon emissions. MARBN 8-tonne ingot casting technology will be developed, and following high temperature (to 1250 degrees C) testing and manufacturing simulation, two full-scale pipe extrusion trials will be undertaken, with product validation by testing and electron metallography. Matching welding consumables will also be developed, qualified and tested. Long term creep and creep-fatigue data generation will feed into performance validation, materials standardisation, and pressure vessel design codes. Interaction with the European KMM-VIN collaboration will enable constructive interchange with parallel European projects. Loughborough University (LU) will make use of its strong background in characterisation and thermodynamic and kinetic modelling to provide a thorough investigation of the microstructures of MARBN after processing and welding in order to inform manufacturing routes and required heat treatments. In addition, LU will thoroughly investigate data relating to the creep performance of existing power plant steels to provide a direct comparison to MARBN to encourage its use within the commercial sector

23/08/16