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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.
T. P. Toepker, J. N. Anno
Nuclear Technology | Volume 46 | Number 1 | November 1979 | Pages 127-133
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32385
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A Type 304 stainless-steel vacuum system has been designed and constructed to study radiation-induced outgassing when this material is exposed to 60Co gamma radiation. An analytical model has been developed that predicts the outgassing from Type 304 stainless steel to be 5 X 10-10 Paℓ/cm2 . s per Mrad/h. Experiments determined the value for Type 304 stainless steel after bakeout at 300°C to be (1.03 ± 0.58) X 10-9 Pa ℓ/cm2 s per Mrad/h, in fair agreement with the analytical model predictions. Studies on thermally induced outgassing from Type 304 stainless steel showed that after bakeout at temperature T*, thermal outgassing ∆ obeys the relationship ∆ = ∆0 exp(∼Q/RT), where both the constant ∆0 and the average desorption energy Q are functions of T*. Water vapor and hydrogen were the principal residual gases in a Type 304 stainless-steel vacuum system, with hydrogen being dominant at low pressures after bakeout.