International Round-Robin on Stress Corrosion Crack Initiation of Alloy 600 Material in Pressurized Water Reactor Primary Water

The International Cooperative Group on Environmentally Assisted Cracking of Water Reactor Materials coordinated an international “Round-Robin” collaboration of 10 laboratories on stress corrosion crack (SCC) initiation in three heats of cold-worked Alloy 600 in high-temperature water. The various laboratories were able to produce good quality experimental crack initiation data, and the Round-Robin exercise highlighted the benefits in generating a significant body of data when assessing the susceptibility of a material to SCC. The compilation of data from multiple laboratories using common test techniques greatly assists the understanding of the material variability and gives confidence in the reliability of the results.