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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.
J. N. Anno, J. A. Walowit
Nuclear Technology | Volume 10 | Number 1 | January 1971 | Pages 67-75
Technical Paper and Note | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT71-A30949
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effects of radiation on the corrosion of stainless steel in a sodium environment are explored by use of an analytical model of the corrosion process which divides it into leaching and “bulk corrosion.” Leaching is assumed to be diffusion controlled and bulk corrosion is assumed to occur linearly with time. The predictions of the model indicate that out-of-pile corrosion weight loss undergoes an initial transient behavior and then becomes linear with time. Further, the ferrite layer formed on austenitic steel reaches a limiting value depending on the diffusion coefficients in the ferrite and the rate of bulk corrosion. Analysis of the effects of fast neutron sputtering on the process shows that the principal effects will be (a) to shorten the time required for the weight loss to become linear, (b) to increase the “equilibrium” corrosion rate, (c) to shorten the time required for the ferrite layer to reach its equilibrium value, and (d) to decrease the thickness of the ferrite layer.