Irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking of thermally sensitized type 304 stainless steel

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:234155

Onchi, Takeo; Hide, Koichiro; Takaku, Hiroshi ^[1]

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1. Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Tokyo (Japan). Komae Research Lab.

Non-sensitized austenitic stainless steels become sensitive to intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) in high temperature oxygenated pure water when irradiated to a high neutron fluence. However, it is still uncertain whether inherent IGSCC susceptibility of thermally sensitized austenitic stainless steels is affected by neutron irradiation, although the heat affected zone of weldments in boiling water reactor core shrouds tends to suffer from cracks when plant operation exceeds ten years. CRIEEPI has been studying neutron irradiation effects on IGSCC susceptibility of sensitized austenitic stainless steels since the late 1970`s. The first work was initiated to examine IGSCC response of irradiated sensitized Type 304 stainless steels (SSs) in high temperature oxygenated water. Recent studies have been performed to investigate in more detail neutron irradiation effects on intergranular cracking susceptibility of sensitized Type 304 SS. Results of slow strain rate tensile tests at 290 C showed that fast neutron irradiation to as 2 low as 3.0{times}10{sup 19} n/cm{sup 2} induced an enhancement of IGSCC susceptibility in oxygenated water. In addition, the neutron irradiated material was susceptible to intergranular cracking in noncorrosive environments of water and inert gas. These two conspicuous effects of neutron irradiation on intergranular cracking of the thermally sensitized material are discussed.

• OSTI ID: 234155
• Report Number(s): CONF-9411168--; ISBN 0-87171-444-2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
BWR TYPE REACTORS
CRACK PROPAGATION
DATA
INTERGRANULAR CORROSION
MICROSTRUCTURE
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
SHROUDS
STAINLESS STEEL-304
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
WELDED JOINTS