European project "supercritical water reactor-fuel qualification test": Summary of general corrosion tests

Radek Novotný*, Přemysl Janík, Aki Toivonen, Anna Ruiz, Zoltan Szaraz, Lefu Zhang, Jan Siegl, Petr Haušild, Sami Penttilä, Jan Macák

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    3 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The main target of the EUROATOM FP7 project "Fuel Qualification Test for SCWR" is to make significant progress toward the design, analysis, and licensing of a fuel assembly cooled with supercritical water in a research reactor. The program of dedicated Work Package (WP4)-Prequalification was focused on evaluation of general corrosion resistance of three preselected austenitic stainless steels, 08Cr18Ni10Ti, AISI 347H, and AISI 316L, which should be prequalified for application as a cladding material for fuel qualification tests in supercritical water. Therefore, the experiments in support of WP4 concentrated on 2000-hr corrosion exposures in 25-MPa supercritical water (SCW) at two different temperatures 550°C and 500°C dosed with both 150 and 2000 ppb of dissolved oxygen content. Moreover, the water chemistry effect was investigated by conducting tests in 550°C SCW with 1.5 ppm of dissolved hydrogen content. At first, corrosion coupons were exposed for 600, 1400, and 2000 hrs in Joint Research Centre-Institute for Energy and Transport (JRC-IET), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. (VTT), and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) autoclaves connected to the recirculation loop, allowing continual water chemistry control during the test. The following examination of exposed specimens consisted of weight-change calculations and detailed macroand microscopic investigation of oxide layers using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). With respect to general corrosion results, all tested steels showed sufficient corrosion resistance in SCW conditions taking into account the conditions foreseen for future fuel qualification test in the research reactor in CVR Rez. When the results of weight-change calculations were compared for all three materials, it was found that the corrosion resistance increased in the following order: 316L < 347H < 08Cr18Ni10Ti. Results obtained in hydrogen water chemistry (HWC) did not indicate any significant beneficial effect compared to tests in SCW with 150 or 2000 ppb dissolved oxygen content. Additional tests were dedicated to investigation of the surface-finish effect. In these exposures, polished, sand-blasted, and planemilled surface-finish techniques were investigated. The beneficial effect of surface cold work in particular of sand-blasting was clearly demonstrated.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number031007
    JournalJournal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science
    Volume2
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2016
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed
    Event7th International Symposium on Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactors, ISSCWR-7 - Helsinki, Finland
    Duration: 15 Mar 201518 Mar 2015

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