The hydrogen infrastructure involves hydrogen production, storage and delivery for utilization with clean energy applications. Hydrogen ingress into structural materials can be detrimental due to corrosion and embrittlement. To enable safe operation in applications that need protection from hydrogen isotopes, this review article summarizes most recent advances in materials design and performance characterization of barrier coatings to prevent hydrogen isotopes’ absorption ingress and permeation. Barriers are crucial to prevent hydride formation and unwanted hydrogen effects to increase safety, materials’ lifetime and reduce cost for applications within nuclear and renewable energy. The coating may be applied on a material that requires protection from hydrogen pick-up, transport and hydride formation in hydrogen storage containers, in pipelines, spent nuclear fuel storage or in nuclear reactors. While existing, commercial coatings that have been much in use may be satisfactory for various applications, it is desirable to evaluate whether alternative coating concepts can provide a greater resistance to hydrogen isotope permeation along with other improved properties, such as mechanical strength and thermal resistance. The information presented here is focusing on recent findings within the past 5–7 years of promising hydrogen barriers including oxides, nitrides, carbon, carbide, MAX-phases and metals and their mechanical strength, hydrogen pick-up, radiation resistance and coating manufacturing techniques. A brief introduction to hydrogen permeation is provided. Knowledge gaps were identified to provide guidance for material’s research prospects.
Similar to many existing Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR), the AP1000® cores will undergo sub-cooled nucleate boiling in the upper grid spans of some fuel assemblies at normal operating conditions. Sub-cooled nucleate boiling may increase crud deposits on the fuel cladding surface which may increase the risk of Crud Induced Power Shift (CIPS) and/or Crud Induced Localized Corrosion (CILC). A CIPS/CILC risk assessment has been performed to support the AP1000 fuel assembly design finalization.
In this paper, the advanced thermal-hydraulic (TH) methodology used in the AP1000 plant CIPS/CILC risk assessments are summarized and discussed, and the relationship between the CIPS/CILC mechanisms, fuel reliability, and plant operating conditions is also presented. Finally, acceptable AP1000 core CIPS/CILC risk assessment results are summarized and suggestions that specifically target reducing CIPS/CILC risks for AP1000 plants are described.
This paper summarizes comparisons of VIPRE-W thermal-hydraulic subchannel code predictions with measurements of fluid temperature and void from pressurized water reactor subchannel and bundle tests. Using an existing turbulent mixing model, the empirical coefficient derived from code predictions in comparison to the fluid temperature measurement is similar to those from previous mixing tests of similar bundle configurations. The predicted steady-state axial void distributions and time-dependent void profiles based on the Lellouche and Zolotar model generally agree well with the test data. The void model tends to predict lower void at the upper elevation under bulk boiling. The void predictions are in closer agreement with the measurements from the power increase, temperature increase, and flow reduction transients than the depressurization transient. Additional model sensitivity studies showed no significant improvement in the code predictions as compared to the published test data.
This paper describes a laboratory test program to measure the thermal conductivity of corrosion product deposits on the surface of a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) fuel rod under a variety of thermal hydraulic conditions. This thermal conductivity information is necessary to allow more accurate predictions of fuel rod surface temperatures in the presence of fuel deposits, commonly known as crud.
In this paper, a four regime theory and methodology are proposed and utilized for crud thermal conductivity measurements and calculations. The relevant measurements were performed at the Westinghouse Advanced Loop Tester (WALT) facility, which is a single rod crud thermal-hydraulic test loop built at the Westinghouse Science and Technology Center (STC). This facility is described and then selected experiments and calculated results of this study are presented and discussed.
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