Corrosion in Heavy Liquid Metals for Energy Systems: Materials Compatibility with Liquid Metal Coolants II
Sponsored by: TMS Structural Materials Division, TMS: Corrosion and Environmental Effects Committee, TMS: Nuclear Materials Committee
Program Organizers: Osman Anderoglu, University of New Mexico; Alessandro Marino, Belgian Nuclear Research Centre; Michael Short, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Peter Hosemann, University of California, Berkeley; Mike Ickes, Westinghouse Electric Company
Monday 2:00 PM
March 15, 2021
Room: RM 20
Location: TMS2021 Virtual
Session Chair: Peter Hosemann, UC Berkeley; Michael Ickes, Westinghouse Electric Co.
2:00 PM
Numerical Modelling of Coolant Chemistry in Lead Bismuth Eutectic Cooled Nuclear Reactors: Alessandro Marino1; Kristof Gladinez1; Borja Gonzalez Prieto1; Jun Lim1; Kris Rosseel1; Alexander Aerts1; 1SCK-CEN
MYRRHA is a LBE cooled accelerator driven system, currently in its latest design phase at SCK•CEN. Chemistry control of the liquid metal coolant is of paramount importance for the development of LBE cooled systems such as MYRRHA. An integrated numerical code based on CFD and chemical reaction module is being developed for LBE at SCK•CEN. Such codes allow numerical simulations to complement experimental activities in the research programme on MYRRHA reactor safety and operability. Equilibrium conditions of the LBE chemistry is modelled based on Gibbs free energy minimization method which enables the calculations of complex multi-component/multi-phase chemical equilibria of non-ideal solutions. The required thermodynamical data have been gathered from literature and/or measured by the CCP team at SCK•CEN.In this presentation, relevant simulation examples will be given for the design support of oxygen control units, general impurity chemistry in the MYRRHA primary system, and corrosion modeling in wire-wrapped fuel assemblies.
2:20 PM Invited
Behaviour of Spallation, Activation and Fission Products in LBE: Alexander Aerts1; Borja Gonzalez Prieto1; Jörg Neuhausen2; 1SCK CEN; 2Paul Scherrer Institut
Lead bismuth eutectic (LBE) has been used or is foreseen as coolant and spallation target in accelerator driven subcritical reactors and fast spectrum critical reactors. Especially in accelerator driven systems a large number of different radionuclides will be formed in the liquid LBE by spallation and activation reactions. Furthermore, fission products may leak into the LBE through damaged fuel cladding. Many of these elements may have an impact on safety if released from the LBE into the gas phase. A quantitative understanding of radionuclide release from LBE is therefore needed for the development of LBE-based nuclear systems. The release of radionuclides strongly depends on their chemistry in LBE. In this presentation, the chemical behavior in LBE and release of elements with the highest potential radiological impact is discussed.
2:45 PM
Engineering Model of the Kinetics of the Steel Oxide Layer in a Flow of a Heavy Liquid Metal Coolant Under Various Oxygen Conditions: Alexander Avdeenkov1; Alexander Orlov2; Nafees Kabir3; 1«All-Russian Research Institute for Nuclear Power Plants Operation» JSC; 2Proryv JSC; 3MEPhI
An engineering model is presented for a self-consistent calculation of the growth of an oxide film in circulation loops with a heavy liquid metal coolant and concentrations of impurities using STAR-CCM+ software complex. The modeling of thermohydraulic and physicochemical processes is based on solving the associated three-dimensional equations of hydrodynamics, heat transfer, convective-diffusive transport, and the formation of chemically interacting impurity components in the coolant volume and on the surface of steels. The parabolic constant, which is determined by the degree of steel oxygen consumption, obviously significantly depends on this steel grade.For a more adequate justification of the evolution of the oxide film, a semi-empirical model is proposed for using the empirical parameterization of the parabolic constant not only in the equation for changing the thickness of the oxide film, but also in the mass balance equation associated with it.
3:05 PM Invited
Progress in LBE Chemistry Control and Measurement Techniques for MYRRHA: Jun Lim1; Kristof Gladinez1; Borja Gonzalez-Prieto1; Alessandro Marino1; Kris Rosseel1; Alexander Aerts1; 1SCK CEN
The Multipurpose hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications (MYRRHA), is a research facility that will be the first prototype in the world of a large scale accelerator driven system (ADS). An extensive R&D program on LBE coolant chemistry is being conducted for MYRRHA. We focus our R&D efforts on; 1) oxygen control and monitoring, 2) chemistry of corrosion products and their purification and 3) evaporation and immobilization of hazardous radionuclides from LBE. This presentation aims at giving an overview of our progress in understanding and managing LBE coolant chemistry, focusing on oxygen and corrosion products chemistry. Experience gained from various LBE experimental facilities with chemistry monitoring and control systems such as oxygen sensor, corrosion products sensor, electrochemical oxygen pumps, PbO mass exchanger, hydrogen bubbling system as well as a cold trap will be shared. In addition, the coolant chemistry control strategy for MYRRHA will be discussed.
3:30 PM
PILLAR: Pool-type Integral Leading Facility for Lead-alloy Cooled Advanced Small Modular Reactor, and Its Use for Natural Convection Study and Corrosion: Jaewon Choi1; SangBum KIM1; Kyunghwan Keum1; Youho Lee1; Il Soon Hwang2; Han-Chil Lee3; 1Seoul National University; 2Ulsan National Institute of Science and Engineering (UNIST); 3Moojin
We are introducing the PILLAR facility of SNU and its use for the integral mockup testing of Pb-Bi reactor systems with a focus on natural convection and corrosion. The current status, and future plan of the facility use are discussed.
3:50 PM
Materials Compatibility Testing with Molten Lead up to 700°C: Osman Anderoglu1; Cemal Cakez1; Shuprio Ghosh1; Khaled Talaat1; Madhavan Radhakarishnan1; Keith Woloshun2; Cetin Unal2; Stuart Maloy2; Michael Ickes3; Paolo Ferroni3; 1University of New Mexico; 2Los Alamos National Laboratory; 3Westinghouse Electric Company
A new test loop (Lobo Lead Loop) capable of forced convection of molten lead up to 700°C was established at the University of New Mexico. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to design the specimen holders to achieve 3 m/s flow velocity. Initial testing was completed at 500°C for up to 672 hrs on 16 alloys including ferritic (both silica and alumina forming), ferritic martensitic, and austenitic alloys under controlled oxygen levels in the lead. Currently the testing is underway to reach >4000 hrs on same alloys. Preliminary cross-sectional SEM investigations show various morphologies of protective oxides on all the tested specimens. More detailed studies will be conducted along with the longer duration testing. The details of the loop will also be presented along with the transition to 700°C testing and efforts on radioisotope retention studies.
4:10 PM
Anubis Multiphysics: A Neutronics-Thermal Hydraulics Coupling Platform for Flow Accelerated Corrosion Modeling in Reactor Conditions: Khaled Talaat1; Osman Anderoglu1; 1The University of New Mexico
A platform has been developed for automated general geometry, external coupling of MCNP6.1 and OpenFOAM/STAR-CCM+ for the purposes of corrosion modeling in reactor conditions. General geometry coupling is achieved by mapping CFD regions used in conjugate heat transfer simulations to MCNP cells rather than mapping mesh elements to cells. The utility maps the temperature field from the CFD code to the MCNP cells and updates the cell densities, surface parameters, and cross-sections to account for temperature dependence. The utility then updates the power distribution in the CFD case and obtains a corrected temperature distribution. The process is repeated until convergence of the temperature and power distributions. The Makxsf utility is used to obtain temperature-adjusted Doppler broadened cross-sections for all nuclides in the system. The flow accelerated corrosion models being developed for the Lobo lead loop can be readily integrated to model corrosion in reactor temperature distribution and fluid flow conditions.
4:30 PM
Performance of Candidate Alloys at 500°C in Flowing Lead: Cemal Cakez1; Shuprio Ghosh1; Khaled Talaat1; Keith Woloshun1; Stuart Maloy2; Cetin Unal2; Michael Ickes3; Paolo Ferroni4; Osman Anderoglu1; 1University of New Mexico; 2Los Alamos National Lab; 3Westinghouse Electric Corporation ; 4Westinghouse Electric Corporation
A major obstacle to Lead Cooled Fast Reactor technology is the lack of structural materials that can withstand Pb corrosion at high temperatures (up to 700°C) and flow velocities. Recently established lead loop facility at the University of New Mexico is capable of testing materials compatibility with flowing molten lead up to 3 m/s flow velocity. In this talk, results from the recent compatibility tests at 500°C on a variety of engineering and model alloys including Fe-10Cr binary, ferritic FeCrSi and FeCrAl based alloys, and several austenitic steels including SS316 will be presented. The test conditions (oxygen levels in Pb, flow velocity, and temperature) are kept identical for each of these alloys during the tests. Initial analysis on 168- and 672-hour testing has been completed. The testing will be extended up to 4000 hrs. The results will also include long term lead/LBE compatibility testing of TIG and e-beam welded FeCrAl.