Irradiated Assisted Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Light Water Reactors - Focus on Radiolysis and Corrosion Damage Mi Wang
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Irradiated Assisted Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Light Water Reactors - Focus on Radiolysis and Corrosion Damage Mi Wang To cite this version: Mi Wang. Irradiated Assisted Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Light Water Reactors - Focus on Radi- olysis and Corrosion Damage. 2013. hal-00841142 HAL Id: hal-00841142 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00841142 Submitted on 19 Aug 2013 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés, UMR 7642 Bibliography Report June 2013 Irradiated Assisted Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Light Water Reactors – Focus on Radiolysis and Corrosion Damage Mi WANG 1, 2 1 Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés – Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, CEA, Palaiseau, France 2 Laboratoire d’Etude de la Corrosion Aqueuse – CEA/DEN/DPC/SCCME, Centre de Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés Tél. : 33 1 69 33 44 80 28, route de Saclay, F91128 Palaiseau Fax : 33 1 69 33 45 54 http://www.lsi.polytechnique.fr 2 Contents 1 Light Water Reactors5 1.1 General Introduction.....................................6 1.1.A Main Components..................................6 1.2 Classification of Nuclear Reactors..............................8 1.2.A Classified via Nuclear reaction............................8 1.2.B Classified by Coolant and Moderator........................8 1.2.C Classified via Generation...............................8 1.3 Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs)..............................9 1.3.A Introduction......................................9 1.3.B Water Chemistry Control in BWRs......................... 10 1.4 Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs)............................ 13 1.4.A The Primary and the Secondary Circuits of PWRs................ 13 1.4.B Water Chemistry Control in the Primary Circuit................. 15 1.4.C Water Chemistry Control in the Secondary Circuit................ 18 1.5 Summary........................................... 18 References.............................................. 20 2 Water Radiolysis 23 2.1 The Interaction of Radiation with Matter......................... 25 2.1.A Energy Loss via Interactions............................. 25 2.1.B Stopping Power and Linear Energy Transfer (LET)................ 30 2.1.C Different types of radiation............................. 33 2.2 Pure Water Radiolysis.................................... 38 2.2.A Mechanism of Water Radiolysis........................... 38 2.2.B Radiolytic Yields................................... 43 2.3 PWR Water Radiolysis.................................... 50 2.3.A Radiolysis in the Presence of H2,H2O2 and O2 .................. 50 2.3.B Critical Hydrogen Concentration (CHC)...................... 52 2.3.C Radiolysis in the Presence of Bore and Lithium.................. 53 2.3.D Influence of Other Parameters on Radiolytic Yields................ 54 2.4 Summary........................................... 61 References.............................................. 62 3 CONTENTS 3 Corrosion issues of 316L under Primary PWR Conditions 69 3.1 The Oxide on 316L Formed under Primary PWR Water................. 71 3.1.A Double-Layer Structure Oxide............................ 72 3.1.B The Mechanism of Oxide Formation........................ 74 3.1.C The Electronic Properties of Oxide Film...................... 80 3.1.D Influence of Different Parameters on The Oxide.................. 84 3.2 Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC).............................. 94 3.2.A SCC without Irradiation............................... 95 3.2.B IASCC - Irradiation Assisted Stress Corrosion Cracking............. 98 3.3 Summary........................................... 106 References.............................................. 107 4 Chapter 1 Light Water Reactors 1.1 General Introduction.................................6 1.1.A Main Components...................................6 1.2 Classification of Nuclear Reactors.........................8 1.2.A Classified via Nuclear reaction............................8 1.2.B Classified by Coolant and Moderator........................8 1.2.C Classified via Generation...............................8 1.3 Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs)..........................9 1.3.A Introduction.......................................9 1.3.B Water Chemistry Control in BWRs......................... 10 1.3.B.1 Impurities.................................. 11 1.3.B.2 Mitigating Effects on Materials Degradation.............. 11 1.3.B.3 Chemistry Control Effects on Radiation Fields............. 12 1.3.B.4 Fuels Performance Issues.......................... 12 1.3.B.5 Other factors................................. 12 1.4 Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs)....................... 13 1.4.A The Primary and the Secondary Circuits of PWRs................ 13 1.4.B Water Chemistry Control in the Primary Circuit................. 15 1.4.B.1 Dissolved Hydrogen............................. 15 1.4.B.2 Balance of Li/B/pHT ............................ 16 1.4.B.3 Zinc Injection................................ 17 1.4.C Water Chemistry Control in the Secondary Circuit................ 18 1.5 Summary......................................... 18 References........................................... 20 5 CHAPTER 1. LIGHT WATER REACTORS Nuclear power is one of the major sources of energy and electricity production. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world’s energy and 13 - 15% of the world’s electricty [1,2]. Nuclear power plants are conventional thermal power stations in which the heat sources are nuclear reactors. They are devices to initiate and control sustained nuclear chain reactions and the heat from nuclear fission is passed to a thermal fluid (water or gas), which runs through turbines to generate power. Most of the nuclear reactors use energy form the the fission of the nucleus of the Uranium 235 isotope, 235U. 235 In France, the nuclear fuel is used in the form of uranium dioxide enriched to 3:5 - 4% in UO2 [3]. The most common types of nuclear reactors are thermal reactors, among which the most popular are Light Water Reactors (LWRs). Because the LWRs are simple and less expressive to build compared to other nuclear reactors, they make up the vast majority of civil nuclear reactors and naval propulsion reactors in service. The LWRs can be subdivided into three categories: Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs) and Supercritical Water Reactors (SWRs). SWRs, now named as KERENA, are based on the successful tradition of BWR technology and is currently still at the design stage [4]. PWRs are the most common civil nuclear reactors in the world. In France, they are the only ones in operation today. 1.1 General Introduction 1.1.A Main Components The Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) is the highest priority key component in a nuclear power plant because it houses the nuclear reactor core and all associated support and alignment devices. It is the major part of the Reactor Coolant System (RCS). The major components of RPV are the reactor vessel, the core barrel, the reactor core and the upper internals package. Nuclear fuel is housed in the core barrel slides down inside of the reactor vessel [5,6]. They are the places that nuclear reactions take place. Most nuclear fuels used inside nuclear reactor core contain heavy fissile elements that are ca- pable of nuclear fission, and the most common fissile nuclear fuels are Uranium 235. When a fissile atomic nuclei 235U, absorbs a neutron, it splits into two or more fast-moving lighter nuclei (the fission products), releasing kinetic energy, γ radiation and free neutrons. A portion of these neutrons may later be absorbed by other fissile atoms and trigger further fission events, which release more neutrons. This is called a nuclear chain reaction. The reactor core generates heat in several ways: • The kinetic energy of fission products is converted to thermal energy when these nuclei collide with nearby atoms. • Some of the γ rays produced during fission are absorbed by the reactor, their energy being converted to heat. • Heat is produced by the radioactive decay of fission products and materials that have been activated by neutron absorption. As a matter of fact, not all these neutrons can initiate further fission reactions due to their low cross section of capturing 235U, so for most nuclear reactors, a neutron moderator is necessary. It is 6 1.1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION a medium that reduces the speed of fast neutrons, thereby turning them into thermal neutrons which are capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction involving Uranium 235. Since energy is conserved, the reduction of the neutron kinetic energy takes place by transferring energy to a moderator. This process of the reduction of the initial high kinetic energy of free neutrons, neutron slowing down, is called moderation, or thermalisation. For the safety of nuclear reactors, reactivity control of nuclear chain reaction is necessary to sustain the core at a low level of power efficiency. The continuous chain reactions of a nuclear fission reactor depends upon at least one neutron from each fission being absorbed by another