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Title: Container assessment: corrosion study of HLW container materials. Quarterly progress report, July-September 1981

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5435626

Work has been started on the corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement behavior of commercially pure titanium (ASTM Grade 2), TiCode-12 (ASTM Grade 12), and OFHC copper, which are primary candidate materials for high level waste containers. The test environment used is a simulated brine solution typical of bedded salt at 150/sup 0/C or room temperature. The immersion test results for these materials are in reasonable agreement with previous screening test results of Sandia National Laboratory; electron beam welded titanium and TiCode-12 samples show higher corrosion rates than the non-welded samples. In the immersion tests on mechanically-creviced titanium, a major crevice corrosion product is observed which has various colors and was identified by Transmission electron Microscopy to be a mixture of TiO/sub 2/ and other low oxides such as Ti/sub 2/O/sub 3/ and TiO. The crevice region of TiCode-12 shows a color change at 150/sup 0/C with a thicker film forming at 200/sup 0/C. The correlation of electrochemistry and immersion tests is under study. Sulfur introduced in a crevice simulation test on copper has been shown to cause attack. Copper, in the absence of sulfur, however, shows no visible crevice corrosion. As an aid to understanding uniform and crevice corrosion results, potential-pH diagrams are being constructed. Slow strain rate embrittlement and impact embrittlement have been observed in cathodically hydrogen charged commercially pure titanium and TiCode-12 in tension and buckling tests. C-ring and U-bend specimens of titanium and TiCode-12 have been designed and a slow strain rate test machine is being built to study stress corrosion cracking. Alternating Current Impedance and Scanning Reference Electrode Techniques are ready for pitting studies. For the study of radiation-induced corrosion, an irradiation cell was set up in the gamma pool to estimate quantitatively the oxidants as well as hydrogen produced by the gamma radiation in the brine solutions.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-76CH00016
OSTI ID:
5435626
Report Number(s):
NUREG/CR-2317-Vol.1-No.3; BNL-NUREG-51449-Vol.1-No.3; ON: DE82015088
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English