Addressing the Increasing Relevance of Irradiation Assisted Stress Corrosion Cracking

R.Grard
International seminar Networking for effective R&D , Petten, 22-23 September 2003

Relevance of IASCC
Known problems:
PWR: baffle bolt cracking BWR: core shroud cracking (IGSCC due to thermal sensitization with possible assistance of radiation effect?)

Potential problems:
PWR: baffle bolts/plate swelling PWR: long term evolution of IASCC susceptibility

Maximum neutron dose (approx.) - 40 years of operation

PWR (typical 900 MW unit)
Core barrel 10 dpa, T 300 330C Core baffle 80 to 100 dpa T 370C (at former levels) Baffle bolt 70 dpa, T 350C

BWR (typical)
Shroud and top guide 0.6 dpa Fuel support 7 dpa

PWR lower internals (Typical)

PWR core barrel

Baffle-formers assembly

Baffle/formers/core barrel assembly (detail)

CW 316 SS 5/8 bolts With or without cooling holes

Baffle bolt cracking

Cracked baffle bolts detected in French, Belgian, Japanese and U.S. plants (316 CW and 347 stainless steels) Examination of extracted bolts confirm IASCC origin of the cracking Number of bolts largely exceeds what is necessary to maintain the integrity of the internals in accident conditions (control rods insertion) no safety issue as long as cracking remains limited No reliable predictive model to date; influence of dose and stress

Baffle bolt cracking evolution in French CP0 units and Tihange 1

100 90 NUMBER OF CONFIRMED CRACKED BOLTS 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 50000 65000 80000

Fessenheim 1/Tihange 1 * Fessenheim 2 / Bugey 2 * Bugey3 Bugey4 Bugey5

* The bolts of the plants represented by the same symbol are made from the same heat

Bugey 2 Fessenheim 2

Tihange 1 Bugey 3 Bugey 5 Bugey 4

95000 110000 125000 140000 EQUIVALENT FULL POWER HOURS

Fessenheim 1

From An analysis of Bafle/Former bolt cracking in Franch PWR Peter M. Scott, M.C.Meunier, D.Deydier, S.Sylvestre and A.Trenty, Environmentally Assisted Cracking : Predictive methods for Risk Assessment and Evaluation of Materials , ASTM 1401

Irradiation swelling
Problem known from fast reactors experience Until recently, not expected to occur at PWR temperatures First measurement on non-negligible swelling reported in Tihange 1 Baffle Bolt in 2000 (CIR): 0.25% max Lower levels measured in baffle bolts extracted from U.S.plants (0.03%) Irradiation swelling is highly temperature dependant

Irradiation swelling
Likely to affect only limited locations in PWRs (high dose and temperature) like re-entrant corners baffle/former junctions No indication to date of significant risk for PWR internals in short/medium term Uncertainty on long term (very high dose) behaviour

BWR core shroud cracking

BWR - Core shroud cracking

First case in 1990: Mhleberg, Switzerland More than 30 reactors affected worldwide Materials: AISI 304, 304L, 347, 316L IGSCC/IASCC initiated in HAZ

International activities
Cooperative IASCC research program (CIR-II) International IASCC advisory committee EPRI MRP (Materials Reliability Program) Internals Task Group JoBB (Joint Baffle Bolt Program) Japanese projects (JAPEIC) OECD Halden Reactor Project

European projects
INTERWELD (FP5): irradiation effect on the evolution of microstructure, properties and residual stresses in the HAZ of stainless steel welds PRIS (FP5) : properties of irradiated stainless steels for predicting lifetime of NPP components LIRES (FP 5): development of reference electrode AMALIA network PERFECT proposal (FP 6)

What do we need?
Reasonable understanding of IASCC and irradiation swelling in order to develop predictive models.
need for experimental data (microstructure, microchemistry, mechanical properties, dose, temperature) on service components (LWR) irradiated to high dose.

Mitigation methods. In spite of (tens of) millions of EUR spent in the last years in various international or national programs, we are still far from reaching these objectives!

What are the problems?

Any test on highly irradiated stainless steel is very expensive. Lot of information was obtained on specimens irradiated in the fast reactor BOR 60; not certain it is representative of PWR irradiations at lower fluxes (no formal proof of the contrary either). Lack of material from real components irradiated to very high doses. Limited flow of information between groups (proprietary data) nobody has the full picture.

Problems
Increasingly difficult to get money from the industry to finance very costly international programs which do not deliver solutions.

Mitigation/repair techniques
Engineering solutions Baffle bolt cracking: Inspection + replacement (in most cases same material with slightly improved design) BWR core shroud cracking:
repair (tie-rods, clamps, brackets) or replacement (performed in Japan: Fukushima 2 and 3, Sweden: Oskarshamn 1, Forsmark 1-2). Difficulty and outage time very variable depending on design

Other possible mitigating actions

Improved material (need improved resistance to IASCC and swelling; hard to qualify because would need long irradiation in representative conditions; accelerated irradiations not necessarily representative) Improved design (stress concentration, temperature) Improved chemistry (HWC in BWRs, Noble metal addition)

Conclusions
Progress was made in the last years on many aspects of IASCC (microstructural and microchemistry evolution). Understanding of the phenomenon still limited in spite of ambitious (and expensive) international programs. In-plant problems under control for the short/medium term thanks to engineering solutions (inspections, replacement, repair). Questions remain concerning PWR internal degradation at very high doses (40 years or more).