The water wall tube surfaces in the lower fbmace areas of kraft recovery boilers are exposed to a reduced sulfidizing atmosphere. Water wall surfaces are known to experience temperature excursions. High temperature excursions are relatively infrequent and most temperature spikes in this area are of small amplitude. Although it was known from the previous studies that continuous temperature cycling increases the corrosion rate of exposed metals, but the mechanism by which infrequent spikes increase the corrosion rate of carbon steel alloys in sulfidizing
environment was not clear. The present study was aimed at establishing the effect of infrequent thermal excursions on overall high-temperature sulfidation of carbon steel used for water wall tubes. Results from the present study showed that even a couple of infrequent high-temperature thermal excursions, which can lead to scale darnage, followed by long post spike exposure may lead to a higher corrosion rate than the equivalent isothermal tests conducted at the higher temperature of the thermal excursion.