Numerical and Experimental Investigations of the Transient Thermal Behavior of a Steam By-Pass Valve at Steam Temperatures Beyond 700 °C

Increasing the efficiency of steam power plants is important to reduce their CO2 emissions and can be achieved by increasing steam temperatures beyond 700 °C. Within the present study, the thermal behavior of a steam by-pass valve subject to cyclic operation with 700 °C steam is investigated experimentally and numerically. An innovative numerical approach was applied to predict the valve’s thermal behavior during cyclic operation, which is essential for fatigue life assessment of such a component. Validation of the applied numerical approach has shown good agreement with measurement results, indicating the potential of its application for the valve design process.