Stress corrosion cracking studies of reactor pressure vessel steels. Final report
- Babcock and Wilcox Co., Alliance, OH (United States). Research and Development Div.
The objective of this project was to perform a critical review of the information available in open literature on stress corrosion cracking of reactor pressure vessel materials in simulated light-water-reactor (LWR) conditions, develop a test procedure for conducting stress corrosion crack growth experiments in simulated LWR environments, and conduct a test program in an effort to duplicate some of the data available from the literature. The authors concluded that stress corrosion crack growth has been observed in pressure vessel steels under laboratory test conditions. The composition of the water in most cases where growth was observed is outside of the composition specified for operating conditions. Crack growth was observed in the experiments performed in this program, and it was intermittent. The cracking would start and stop for no apparent reason. In most instances, it would not restart without the change of some external variable. In a few instances, it restarted on its own. Crack growth rates as high as 3.6 {times} 10{sup {minus}9} m/sec were observed in pressure vessel steels in high-purity water with 8 ppm oxygen. These high crack growth rates were observed for extremely short bursts in crack extension. They could not be sustained for crack growth extensions greater than a few tenths of a millimeter. From the results of this project it appears highly unlikely that stress corrosion cracking will be observed in operating nuclear plants where the coolant composition is maintained within water chemistry guidelines. However, more work is needed to better define the contaminations that cause crack growth. The crack growth rates are so high and the threshold values for crack nucleation are so low that the conditions causing them need to be well defined and avoided.
- Research Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst. (EPRI), Palo Alto, CA (United States); Babcock and Wilcox Co., Alliance, OH (United States). Research and Development Div.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 414323
- Report Number(s):
- EPRI-TR-103160; TRN: 97:001276
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Oct 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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