investigationonmaterialdegradationofalloy617inhigh.PDFVIP

/10.5516/NET.2029 INVESTIGATION ON MATERIAL DEGRADATION OF ALLOY 617 IN HIGH TEMPERATURE IMPURE HELIUM COOLANT * DONG-JIN KIM , GYEONG-GEUN LEE, SU JIN JEONG, WOO GON KIM, and JI YEON PARK Nuclear Materials Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) Yuseong, Daejeon, Republic of Korea, 305-600 *Corresponding author. E-mail : djink@kaeri.re.kr Received February 28, 2011 Accepted for Publication April 11, 2011 The corrosion of materials exposed to high temperature helium in a very high temperature reactor is caused by interaction with the impurities in the helium. This interaction then induces high temperature mechanical deterioration. By considering the effect of the impurity concentration on material corrosion, a long-term coolant chemistry guideline can be determined for the range of impurity concentration at which the material is stable for a long time. In this work, surface reactions were investigated by analyzing the thermodynamics and the experimental results for Alloy 617 exposed to controlled impure helium at 950ºC. Moreover, the surfaces were examined for the Alloy 617 crept in air and in uncontrolled helium, which was explained by possible surface reactions. KEYWORDS : Impure Helium, VHTR, Corrosion, Thermodynamics, Surface Reaction 1. INTRODUCTION integrity of the coolant system during the long-term operation of nuclear power plants. Helium is used as a coolant in a very high temperature A consideration of the thermodynamics shows which reactor (VHTR) among generation IV nuclear power reactions occur on the surface of materials among oxidation, plants due to its high thermal conductivity, inertness, and carburizatio