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

IMPULSE will work with novel "MARBN" high temperature steel, recently developed in TSB 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 KMM-VIN collaboration will enable constructive interchange with
parallel European projects.
The Nottingham team will provide the required expertise for testing MARBN specimens under creep and creep-fatigue
conditions and developing the fatigue life model and the associated Finite Element modelling capabilities to enable the life
prediction of welded MARBN pipes under flexible power plant operating conditions.

The proposed IMPULSE project will enable industrial partners, Doosan Babcock, Wyman-Gordon, Goodwin Steel Castings,
Alstom Power, Metrode Products and E.ON Technologies and their supply chains to gain market share on behalf of UK plc.
in a growing global energy market, where the need exists for larger and more efficient coal fired plant. In order to deliver
technology solutions, it is necessary to gain improved knowledge about materials' performance during processing and
subsequent service, together with new processing routes for component manufacture and consumable design for the
welding of large scale components. The project will also further develop collaborations between industry, research
organisations and academia - a vital mix for market success.
In the most general sense, the UK population and economy will benefit from this research programme in that it will enable
the UK combustion power generation sector to maintain a cost-competitive, environmentally-acceptable generation option.
It will also create and safeguard a significant number of UK jobs in the manufacturing sector.
The research will also contribute to meeting nationally and internationally agreed targets for CO2 emissions. For next
generation power plant with carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS), better materials performance is the key to improved efficiency, and in turn to both cost and emissions savings. The use of MARBN has the potential to increase
operating temperature of plant by up to 25 degrees C. This 25 degrees C uprating will increase efficiency by approximately
1%, reducing costs by at least 2%, and could save 1M tonnes of carbon p.a. in the UK alone, even if CCS is not fitted.
Flexible, abated fossil plant will enable supply security as the process of decarbonisation progresses.
Results will be disseminated as appropriate to UK industrialists and academics through fora such as the Materials UK -
Energy Materials group, and the Advanced Power Generation Technology Forum; in Europe through the Materials for
Energy network within KMM-VIN; and worldwide via international conferences, workshops, and international
standardisation committees.
The creep and creep-fatigue testing programme will provide plant operators with greater understanding of the implications
of using the novel MARBN steel pipes in power plants. The new life prediction techniques for MARBN that will be
developed by the Nottingham team, validated by the test data, will enable plant operators to operate the new pipes safely
under flexible plant operating conditions. The Nottingham team has successfully launched four International Conferences
on the Integrity of High Temperature Welds, and will provide dedicated sessions on the new MARBN steel research
findings to be disseminated in the fifth conference.