Despite the significant progress achieved in power generation technologies in the past two decades, finding effective solutions to further reduce emissions of harmful gases from thermal power plant still remains the major challenge for the power generation industry as well as alloy material developers. In the European material programmes COST 522 and COST 536, based on the existing 9-12%Cr creep resisting steels, an advanced 9%Cr-Mo martensitic alloy, C(F)B2 (GX13CrMoCoVNbNB9-2-1) alloy has been developed. By modification through alloying of boron and cobalt and together with other micro-adjustment of the composition, C(F)B2 alloys has showed very encouraging properties. The current paper summaries the development and evaluation of the matching filler metals for C(F)B2 grade. The design of the filler metal composition is discussed and comparison is made with the parent materials in respect to the alloy additions and microstructure. The mechanical properties of the weld metals at ambient temperature are examined. Creep properties of both undiluted weld metals and cross-weld joints are examined through stress rupture test and the data are evaluated and compared with those of the base alloy and other existing 9%Cr-Mo creep resisting steels.

The current study proposed a new method that utilizes digital image correlation (DIC) techniques to measure in-situ full field strain maps of creep resistant material welds. The stress-rupture test is performed in a Gleeble thermal mechanical simulator. This technique successfully captured a significant difference in the local creep deformation between two Grade 91 steel welds with different pre-welding conditions (standard and non-standard). Strain contour plots exhibited inhomogeneous deformation in the weldments, especially at the heat-affected zone (HAZ). Standard heat-treated specimens had significant creep deformation in the HAZ. On the other hand, non-standard heat treated specimens showed HAZ local strains to be 4.5 times less than that of the standard condition, after a 90-hour creep test at 650°C and 70 MPa. The present study measured the full field strain evolution in the weldments during creep deformation for the first time. The proposed method demonstrated a potential advantage to evaluate local creep deformation in the weldments of any creep resistant material within relatively short periods of time.