Corrosion Failure Analysis of A178 Gr A Carbon Steel Boiler Tube Used in an Oil Refinery

The boilers and other equipment utilized for steam generation suffer from a wide range of failure mechanisms particularly metallurgical failures, e.g. creep, graphitization, spheroidization and also different types of corrosion. In the current work, the causes of corrosion and premature failure of a carbon steel boiler bank tube used in an oil refinery was investigated by different microscopical and analytical techniques. The results showed that the main failure cause of the tube was localized corrosion which was happened due to formation of silicate deposits formed on the internal surface of the tube and consequently its caustic corrosion. At the end, some suggestions are given to mitigate such corrosion and failures.