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Title: Time-temperature-dose rate superposition: A methodology for predicting cable degradation under ambient nuclear power plant aging conditions

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6814772

Time-temperature superposition is an empirical approach that has been used in polymers for more than 30 years to make thermal aging predictions at experimentally inaccessible times. Given the historical success of time-temperature superposition, we have expanded this approach for combined radiation-thermal environments, yielding an empirical time-temperature-dose rate shifting procedure. The procedure derives an isothermal curve for a given amount of material damage versus dose rate at a selected reference temperature by finding the Arrhenius activation energy that causes higher-temperature dose-rate data to superpose when shifted to the reference temperature. The resulting superposed curve at the reference temperature expends to much lower dose rates that, in effect, are experimentally inaccessible due to the long time periods which would be required. This procedure therefore allows meaningful predictions to be made under long-term, low-dose rate, radiation aging conditions. Using historical data from our radiation-aging program on nuclear power plant cable materials, we have successfully applied the time-temperature-dose rate superposition approach to four different materials. For two of these materials, extrapolated predictions based on the superposed data were found to be in excellent agreement with 12-year, low-dose rate nuclear power plant results.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-76DP00789
OSTI ID:
6814772
Report Number(s):
SAND-88-0754; ON: DE89001582
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English