`Nine Chrome One Molybdenum steel qualification (power generation)`

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CS_F2012_06 · Codes and Standards, Fall 2012 · §2.p5

The boiler and pressure vessel code, which we've talked a little bit about — we're designing with 70-year-old steels. The federal government and industry has spent several hundred million dollars over the last 30 years trying to qualify 9 Chrome 1 moly as a high-temperature steel. If you go up and operate at higher and higher temperatures — from carbon steel, which is not good for a pressure vessel much above 300 or 400 degrees Fahrenheit — you can get higher and higher temperatures by adding more Chrome and more moly. We have 2¼ Chrome 1 moly, we have 5 Chrome 2 moly, we have a bunch of different steels. The next one people would like to have, without going all the way to stainless steels which are very expensive, is 9 Chrome 1 moly. They could make a little bit higher temperature boiler or steam generator. Why do you need that? For thermodynamic efficiency. But it hasn't been qualified, it hasn't been certified, and because it's not certified for use by the code — well actually it is now to a certain extent, but it's taken 30, 40 years before people actually can start to use these things, and hundreds of millions of dollars.