Under high temperature services such as in waste incinerating systems, failure can occur due to obscure reasons that are not directly related to process parameters. Although, the chosen material for the incinerator may be well suited, deposits in the system and some constituents of the process steam may synergistically react to form aggressive species, which may initiate failure of the material. The downcomer of an incinerator suffered sever cracking and loss of quenching water. Analysis, interestingly, revealed that the observed caustic stress corrosion cracking (CSCC) was not directly related to process parameters; rather, it was the results of the unexpected reactions of process constituents. Thus, an understanding of the factors that may lead to such scenario may help in extending the service life of the incinerator components. In this paper, a case study is presented to provide an insight into the mitigation strategies to circumvent the failure of an incinerator downcomer that had failed due to the presence of a caustic soda by-product that led to local stress corrosion cracking.

Subject
Water, Materials, Flue gas, Melting point, Intergranular cracking, Incinerators, Mechanical failure, Sodium, Color, Sensitization, Sodium hydroxide, Deposit corrosion, Stainless steel
Keywords:
Incinerator, caustic corrosion, caustic stress corrosion cracking, intergranular, transgranular, high temperature, sensitization, flue gas
Government work published by the Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP) with permission of the author(s). Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
2004
GOV
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