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Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
Y. F. Li, M. Kondo, T. Nagasaka, T. Muroga, V. Tsisar
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 359-363
Materials Development & Plasma-Material Interactions | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12380
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In this work, corrosion experiments on 9Cr-ODS and CLAM steels were carried out in static Pb-Li at 873 K for 250 h. Both steels showed weight loss and softening near the surface after the exposure. Tensile properties did not change and creep properties degraded slightly for 9Cr-ODS steel. In contrast, CLAM steel showed hardening by increase in tensile strength and creep rupture time, and decrease in minimum creep rate and reduction of area. The metallurgical analyses showed that the both steels were non-uniformly corroded by preferential corrosion at grain and sub-grain boundaries. Near the surface, carbides were lost and Cr was depleted to several tens of m depth. The depletion was heavier for 9Cr-ODS than for CLAM. The corrosion mechanism was proposed to be a loss of protective oxide layer followed by dissolution of Cr in matrix into liquid Pb-Li. The more pronounced corrosion effect on 9Cr-ODS than on CLAM may be due to finer grain and sub-grain size enhancing preferential attack by Pb-Li at the boundaries, or lack of Mn in 9Cr-ODS, which can form protective layers for CLAM.