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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
Haiying Fu, Takuya Nagasaka, Teruya Tanaka, Akio Sagara, Hisashi Serizawa, Yuhki Satou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 680-685
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1347469
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Dissimilar-metals joints between vanadium alloy NIFS-HEAT-2 (NH2) and nickel alloy Hastelloy X (HX) were developed by electron beam welding (EBW). If without filler, the joint fractured several minutes after the welding due to hard and brittle intermetallics formed in the weld metal (WM). Pure Ni filler with 0.2–1.0 mm in thickness decreased the content of intermetallics and eliminate hardening in the WM. However, there is always a hardening interlayer estimated as Ni2V and σ intermetallics, existed with thickness of 50 µm between NH2 base metal (BM) and WM. The hardening cannot be eliminated by annealing at high solution temperature of 1373 K. Aging at 723–973 K for 100 h further increased the hardening not only in the hardening interlayer but also in the WM. Pure Cu filler was also investigated. For the joint with 0.5 mm thick Cu filler, there are still hardening interlayer and hardening areas in the WM due to Ni2V and σ intermetallics. However, by increasing the Cu filler to 1 mm thick, the hardening interlayer disappeared by preventing mixture of NH2 and HX to form intermetallics. In this case, Charpy impact property of the joint with 1 mm thick Cu is much improved with ductile-to-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) less than 77 K. Even after thermal aging at 973 K for 100 h, the impact property did not degrade.