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Title: Furniture Rack Corrosion Coupon Surveillance - 2012 Update

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1067479· OSTI ID:1067479

Under the L Basin corrosion surveillance program furniture rack coupons immersed for 14 years (FY2009 coupons) and 16 years (FY2011 coupons) were analyzed and the results trended with coupons exposed for shorter times. In addition, a section harvested from an actual furniture rack that was immersed for 14 years was analyzed for pitting in the weld and heat-affected-zone (HAZ) regions. The L Basin operations maintained very good water quality over the entire immersion period for these samples. These results for FY2009 and FY2011 coupons showed that the average pit depths for the 6061 and 6063 base metal are 1 and 2 mils, respectively, while those for the weld and HAZ are 3 and 4 mils, respectively. The results for the weld and HAZ regions are similar to coupons removed during the period of FY2003 to FY2007. These similarities indicate that the pit development occurred quickly followed by slow kinetics of increase in pit depth. For the actual furniture rack sample average pits of 5 and 2 mils were measured for the HAZ and weld, respectively. These results demonstrate that pitting corrosion of the aluminum furniture racks used to support the spent fuel occurs in waters of good quality. The corrosion kinetics or pit depth growth rate is much less that 1 mil/year, and would not impact long-term use of this material system for fuel storage racks in L Basin if good water quality is maintained.

Research Organization:
Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
DE-AC09-08SR22470
OSTI ID:
1067479
Report Number(s):
SRNL-TR-2012-00248; TRN: US1300262
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English