Advanced ultra-supercritical fossil plants operated at 700/725 °C and up to 350 bars are currently planned to be realized in the next decade. Due to the increase of the steam parameters and the use of new materials e.g. 9-11%Cr steels and nickel based alloys the design of highly loaded components is approaching more and more the classical design limits with regard to critical wall thickness and the related tolerable thermal gradients. To make full use of the strength potential of new boiler materials but also taking into account their specific stress-strain relaxation behavior, new methods are required for reliable integrity analyses and lifetime assessment procedures. Numerical Finite Element (FE) simulation using inelastic constitutive equations offers the possibility of “design by analysis” based on state of the art FE codes and user-defined advanced inelastic material laws. Furthermore material specific damage mechanisms must be considered in such assessments. With regard to component behavior beside aspects of multiaxial loading conditions must be considered as well as the behavior of materials and welded joints in the as-built state. Finally an outlook on the capabilities of new multi-scale approaches to describe material and component behavior will be given.

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