Design Methodologies for High Temperature Reactor Structural Components Cladded With Noncompliant Materials

Abstract

The existing Class A metallic materials qualified for ASME Section III, Division 5 rules for high temperature nuclear reactors, are not optimized for corrosion resistance when exposed to corrosive reactor coolants such as molten salts, and molten lead and lead-bismuth eutectic. Introducing new corrosion-resistant materials into the Code would be a lengthy and expensive process for long design lifetimes, requiring long-term creep test data. A near-term alternative solution might be to allow designers to clad the existing Class A materials with thin layer of some corrosion-resistant material. However, the current ASME Section III, Division 5 rules provide no guidance on evaluating cladded components against the Code creep-fatigue or strain limits requirements. This necessitates the development of design rules for cladded components that do not require long-term testing of clad materials. Depending on the difference in mechanical properties, the influence of clad on the long term response of the structural system can be significant or negligible. This work focuses on developing design rules for cladded components with a clad material that does not accumulate significant inelastic deformation compared to the base material. This work proposes to treat such clad materials as linear elastic. Sample calculations including finite element analyses of a representative molten salt reactor heat exchanger tube without and with clad were performed to verify the proposed approach. Finally, a complete set of design rules for components with noncompliant clad material is proposed.