Life-assessment technology for power-plant components

The nation's aging infrastructure, and the costs of maintaining it, have heightened interest in technologies that can help predict the time to failure of critical components. In the power-generation industry, where component failure can cause injury, societal hardships, and economic losses, life-assessment technology has been a major focus of research. Because of the high costs of repeated inspections, however, one concern of researchers is to create assessment techniques that provide more accurate but less conservative estimates of remaining life. This article reviews improvements made over the last five years in various life-assessment methodologies, including calculational techniques, nondestructive evaluation, and destructive testing of samples removed from installed components