This work is a study of changes in coolant activity due to corrosion products
of extended burn-up cycles of 18-24 months duration, in a typical pressurized
water reactor, under pH and boric acid variations. It deals with non-linearly
changing corrosion rates coupled with pH effects. The CPAIR-P computer
program was modified to accommodate for time-dependent rising corrosion and
effects of coolant chemistry. These simulations suggest that the effect of an
increase in pH value for an extended 24-month cycle on a specific activity,
in the form of a decrease in the said activity, is smeared by the rising
corrosion. The new saturation values for activity at the end-of-cycle are
lower than with a reactor operated at constant low pH/natural boric acid in
the coolant. For a non-linear rise in the corrosion rate coupled with a pH
rise from 6.9 to 7.4 and the use of enriched boric acid (30%-40%), coolant
activity first rises to a peak value during the cycle and then approaches a
much smaller saturation value at the end of the cycle, when compared with the
activity for the system having a constant low pH value (6.9) in the coolant.
In this work, we have shown that the use of enriched boric acid as a chemical
shim actually lowers primary coolant activity when higher pH values, rather
than natural boric acid, are employed in the coolant. For multiple long-term
operating cycles, the saturation value of corrosion product activity
increases in the first two cycles and becomes constant in subsequent ones,
due to the high operational pH value for enriched boric acid (40%) as a
chemical shim.