Pitting Corrosion and its Countermeasures for Pressurized Water Reactor Steam Generator Tubes

CORROSION ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 62 (10) ◽  
pp. 905-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. H. Hur ◽  
M. S. Choi ◽  
D. H. Lee ◽  
M. H. Song ◽  
J. H. Han

Abstract Pitting corrosion was the primary cause of the Alloy 600 (UNS N06600) steam generator tube degradation in a Korean pressurized water reactor (PWR) plant. Pulled tube examinations and remedial measures were carried out to mitigate the pitting. Based on the destructive examinations, the main causes of pitting corrosion were considered to be the following: accumulated sludge with a high copper content due to corrosion of copper alloys in the secondary system, acidic crevice conditions caused by chloride from condenser leakage, and ingress of air during layup. Countermeasures such as copper alloy replacement, water chemistry control, and chemical cleaning were implemented to mitigate the pitting. Chemical cleaning was evaluated as the most effective.

Author(s):  
Shinya Miyata ◽  
Satoru Kamohara ◽  
Wataru Sakuma ◽  
Hiroaki Nishi

In typical pressurized water reactor (PWR), to cope with beyond design basis events such as station black out (SBO) or small break loss of coolant accident with safety injection system failure, injection from accumulator sustains core cooling by compensating for loss of coolant. Core cooling is sustained by single- or two-phase natural circulation or reflux condensation depending on primary coolant mass inventory. Behavior of the natural circulation in PWR has been investigated in the facilities such as Large Scale Test Facility (LSTF) which is a full-height and full-pressure and thermal-hydraulic simulator of typical four-loop PWR. Two steady-state natural circulation tests were conducted in LSTF at both high and low pressure. These two tests were conducted changing the primary mass inventory as a test parameter, while keeping the other parameters such as core power, steam generator (SG) pressure, and steam generator water level as they are. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) plans new natural circulation tests to cover wider range of core power and pressure as test-matrix (including the previous LSTF tests) to validate applicability of the model in wider range of core power and pressure conditions including the SBO conditions. In this paper, the previous LSTF natural circulation tests are reviewed and the new test plan will be described. Additionally, MHI also started a feasibility study to improve the steam generator tube and inlet/outlet plenum model using the M-RELAP5 code [4]. Newly developed model gives reasonable agreement with the previous LSTF tests and applies to the new test conditions. The feasibility findings will also be described in this paper.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document