Cracking of Alloy 600 heater sleeves and nozzles in PWR pressurizers

Conference · Thu Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:48102

Hall, J F; Scott, D B ^[1]; Wright, D A ^[2]; Pathania, R S ^[3]

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1. ABB-Combustion Engineering Nuclear Power, Windsor, CT (United States)
2. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., MD (United States)
3. Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA (United States)

NiCrFe Alloy 600 is widely used throughout the primary system of PWRs for applications other than steam generator tubes and tube plugs where numerous incidents of Primary Water Stress Corrosion Cracking (PWSCC) have occurred. The performance of Alloy 600 in these other applications has generally been good but there have been a few PWSCC incidents in pressurizer instrumentation nozzles and heater sleeves. This paper reviews these Alloy 600 cracking incidents and then presents the results of a failure analysis of Alloy 600 pressurizer heater sleeves from an operating PWR. The analysis concluded that a combination of non-optimum metallurgical condition, cold-work induced during the fabrication process and residual stresses from a partial penetration weld produced conditions that resulted in PWSCC of the heater sleeves.

• OSTI ID: 48102
• Report Number(s): CONF-910808--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CALVERT CLIFFS-1 REACTOR
CALVERT CLIFFS-2 REACTOR
INCONEL 600
INTERGRANULAR CORROSION
PRESSURIZERS
STRESS CORROSION