How To Use Titanium Plates in The Power Industry?

In recent years, in the power industry, combined with the excellent specific strength, corrosion resistance and good fatigue performance of titanium plates, titanium plates have received great attention in application scenarios such as steam turbine blades and generator rings. So let's analyze how titanium plates are specifically used in the power industry?
Because titanium plates have high specific strength, good fatigue performance and corrosion resistance, they are also suitable for steam turbine blades, mainly for the latter stages of the low-pressure section. Typically steam turbine blades are made of martensitic chromium stainless steel. Steel has a heavy specific weight. For high-speed rotating steam turbines, steel blades must withstand huge centrifugal force.

In addition, water vapor often contains chloride phase sulfide, which is caused by condenser leakage and other reasons. These media cause pitting corrosion on the blade surface, and crevice corrosion between the blade root and blade tip or at the tie bars, and the corroded parts will become the source of cracks. The fatigue properties of Crl3 steel are also not ideal. In a corrosive environment with a saturated sodium chloride solution, especially when the pH value is low and oxygen is dissolved, the fatigue strength of Crl3 steel is greatly reduced.

If titanium blades are used to directly replace steel blades according to the original geometry, the situation will be greatly improved. Titanium blades are light, and the centrifugal force on the blade root can be reduced by 40% at the same rotation speed. In addition, the corrosion resistance of titanium blades to salty steam is much better than that of steel, and the fatigue properties of chingan gold are also higher than that of stainless steel.

In the air, the fatigue strength of Ti-6A1-4Y alloy is about 30% higher than that of Cr13 steel, while the fatigue strength of Crl3 steel in sodium chloride liquid is reduced by 2/3-4/5. In comparison, The fatigue properties of titanium alloys are not affected. Therefore, considering the fatigue performance under corrosive conditions is an important factor in replacing steel with titanium.

Titanium plate manufacturers indicate that titanium alloy plates can also be used as generator retaining rings. In the entire turbine generator system, the retaining ring is an important component. The requirements for the retaining ring for large generators are high strength, good fracture resistance, insensitivity to stress corrosion cracking in water media, and non-magnetic. The current retaining ring is made of austenitic Fe-Mn-Cr alloy. This alloy has a strong tendency of stress corrosion cracking, and there are also problems in achieving high strength reliability.