Fatigue Life Analysis of Hydrogen Production Reactor Welds Under Thermal-mechanical-chemical Coupling

Abstract

Hydrogen production reactor are subject to performance degradation problems in the complex environment of high temperature, high pressure and exposed to hydrogen atmosphere. The welds, being weak parts, are susceptible to fatigue damage under the influence of loads such as temperature, pressure and hydrogen penetration. In this paper, we focus on the fatigue life analysis of welds in hydrogen production reactor, taking into account the complex working conditions of thermal-mechanical-chemical coupling. Based on the Fe-safe fatigue analysis software, the stress variation of the welds under multi-field coupling was used as a cyclic load and the fatigue life was predicted using the stress-life method. Respectively, the fatigue life variation law of the weld region was studied at different temperatures, pressures, and hydrogen penetration conditions. The results show that the lowest fatigue life of the welds are concentrated in the vicinity of the fusion zone, with hydrogen penetration and temperature variations having a larger impact on the fatigue life, followed by pressure.