Corrosion and compatibility considerations of liquid metals for fusion reactor applications

TBM testing in ITER: Requirements for the development of predictive tools to describe corrosion-related phenomena in HCLL blankets towards DEMO

“…Near 1985 first results are reported on corrosion behavior of AISI 304 and AISI 316L steel in a small pumped Pb-17Li loop, e.g., by Borgstedt [1]. Also other groups built up activities in the field of corrosion analyses during that time [2][3][4], however corrosion testing was in the beginning limited to moderate temperatures near 400 • C. The corrosion mechanism was described as a leaching-out process, preferably of Ni, with linear kinetics and that austenitic surface scales were converted to porous ferritic ones [2]. End of the 1980s ferritic-martensitic steels were integrated into the test programs [4,5] and a homogeneous dissolution was mentioned as corrosion long-term mechanism.…”

“…Looking on the data, e.g., [1,3,5,7] concerning mass loss of RAFM steels in Pb-15.7Li, a valuable source may exist at least at turbulent flow conditions. In contrast, data for Eurofer at laminar flow (near 1 mm/s) have to be confirmed, too.…”

Molecular dynamics study on diffusion behavior of Li in α-Fe

“…Consequently, the modification of the microscopic and mesoscopic structure leads to embrittlement and weakening of the materials. Experimental tests of stainless steels evidence that liquid lithium corrosion reduces the ultimate tensile strength, ductility and fatigue life [14][15][16][17]. The degree of the degradation of mechanical properties depends primarily on temperature, stain rate, purity of lithium and flowing state of liquid lithium.…”

Influence of temperature and lithium purity on corrosion of ferrous alloys in a flowing lithium environment

“…The corrosion behavior of several ferritic and austenitic steels has been investigated in thermal-and forced-circulation lithium loops [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Data on corrosion/mass transfer in liquid lithium systems have been reviewed to identify the influence of various material and system parameters on corrosion [11][12][13]. The results indicate that mass transfer and deposition most likely will determine the maximum operating temperature in liquid lithium blanket systems.…”