Materials Research for Fossil Energy

Proper selection and implementation of materials is important for maintaining acceptable levels of power plant availability. Forced outages can often be traced to improper selection, fabrication, or installation of a material for the intended application. On the other hand, there is occasionally a change in operating conditions within the plant that renders a previously acceptable material unfit for the intended application. Problems associated with materials can be isolated incidents specific to a particular plant, or they can be a generic problem experienced by the whole industry.

Development of practical solutions to these problems requires knowledge of power plant operations, physical metallurgy principles and a wide range of materials characterization equipment.

The Materials Group at the Energy Research Center has been involved in power plant materials for over 25 years and has developed a wide range of expertise and characterization tools for power plant materials. Projects range from long range research in the areas of alloy development, welding, and corrosion that are sponsored by multiple utility companies and government agencies to short-term problem solving activities for a single sponsor that may be conducted in several days.