Abstract
Integrity evaluations on a platen superheater were conducted as per ASME Section VIII Division 2(hereafter 'ASME VIII(2)') which was originally used for design with implicit consideration of creep effects. A platen superheater subjected to severe loading conditions of high pressure and high temperature at creep regime in a supercritical thermal plant in Korea was chosen for present study. Additional evaluations were conducted as per nuclear-grade high-temperature design rule of RCC-MRx that takes creep effects into account explicitly. Comparisons of the two results from ASME VIII(2) and RCC-MRx were conducted to quantify the conservatism of ASME VIII(2). From present analyses, it was shown that the design evaluation results exceeded allowable limits of RCC-MRx for the plant design conditions although limits of ASME VIII(2) were satisfied regardless of operation time, which means that design as per ASME VIII(2) might be potentially non-conservative in case of operation in creep range. A high-temperature design evaluation program as per RCC-MRx, called 'HITEP_RCC-MRx' has been used and it was shown that pressure boundary components can be designed reliably with the program especially for the loading conditions of long-term creep conditions.