Precipitation-hardened ferritic steels for fast neutron reactors

Abstract

The paper describes precipitation-hardened ferritic steel developed for the core of fast neutron reactors. The effect of the type and amount of hardening oxide phase on the stress-rupture strength and structure of the material at 700°C is examined. The data are extrapolated to 10,000-hour holding to show a stress-rupture strength of 70 to 80 MPa. The radiation resistance of the steel is determined under ion and neutron irradiation to 100 dpa (neutron fluence 2.6 ⋅ 10 23 n/cm 2 ). The steel has high volume stability and low sensitivity of its mechanical characteristics to radiation. The material does not lose its plasticity after the maximum exposure. The corrosion behavior of the precipitation-hardened steel in Na, Li, Pb, and eutectic Pb-Li melts, Pb-Bi alloys, and Cs and Te vapors is investigated. The corrosion resistance of the steel is practically commensurable with or somewhat higher than that of the best reactor steels ÉP172 and ÉP450.

Thermodynamic assessment of the Cs–Te binary system

“…Those estimated values are discarded here in order to consider the original experimental values from Cordfunke and coworkers [7][8][9].…”

“…The magnitude of this corrosion has been assessed for three types of FBR steel cladding [1,2], namely advanced austenitic [3][4][5][6][7], high strength ferritic/martensitic [8], and oxide dispersion strengthened [9][10][11][12] steels.…”