Meso-scale magnetic signatures for nuclear reactor steel irradiation embrittlement monitoring
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd, Richland, WA 99352 (United States)
Verifying the structural integrity of passive components in light water and advanced reactors will be necessary to ensure safe, long-term operations of the existing U.S. nuclear fleet. This objective can be achieved through nondestructive condition monitoring techniques, which can be integrated with plant operations to quantify the “state of health” of structural materials in real-time. While nondestructive methods for monitoring many classes of degradation (such as fatigue or stress corrosion cracking) are relatively advanced, this is not the case for degradation caused by irradiation. The development of nondestructive evaluation technologies for these types of degradation will require advanced materials characterization techniques and tools that enable comprehensive understanding of nuclear reactor material microstructural and behavioral changes under extreme operating environments. Irradiation-induced degradation of reactor steels causes changes in their microstructure that impacts their micro-magnetic properties. In this paper, we describe preliminary results of integrating advanced material characterization techniques with meso-scale computational models. In the future, this will help to provide an interpretive understanding of the state of degradation in structural materials. Microstructural data are presented from monocrystalline Fe and are correlated with variable-field magnetic force microscopy and micro-magnetic measurements. Ongoing research is focused on extending the measurements and models on thin films to gain insights into the structural state of irradiated materials and the resulting impact on magnetic properties. Preliminary conclusions from these correlations are presented, and next steps described.
- OSTI ID:
- 22391212
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1650, Issue 1; Conference: 41. Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, Boise, ID (United States), 20-25 Jul 2014; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Digital Image Correlation of Concrete Slab at University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables
Related Subjects
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
BUILDING MATERIALS
CORRELATIONS
CRACKING
EMBRITTLEMENT
FATIGUE
IRRADIATION
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MICROSTRUCTURE
MONITORING
NONDESTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS
REACTOR MATERIALS
REACTOR MONITORING SYSTEMS
REACTORS
STEELS
STRESS CORROSION
THIN FILMS
VISIBLE RADIATION