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Received: December 16, 2021; Revised: January 22, 2022; Accepted: January 22, 2022
Abstract: The objective of this study was to perform failure analysis of an inlet pipe located in a governor valve of a steam turbine in a district heating system. During the operation, the temperature of the governor valve was increased to as high as ~500 ℃, which induced thermal expansion of the inlet pipe along both axial and radial directions. While the inlet pipe did not have contact with the valve seat, the side plane of the upside was constrained by the casing part, which led the inlet pipe to experience stress field in the form of fatigue and creep. The primary crack was initiated at about 30 mm below the top where the complex stress field was anticipated. These results suggest that the main failure mechanism is a combination of thermal fatigue and creep during the operation supported by the observation of apparent beach marks on the fracture surface and pores near the cracks, respectively.