Effect of Surface Modification on Candidate Alloys for Canadian SCWR Fuel Cladding

Jian Li, Pei Liu, Renata Zavadil, Tom Malis, Sami Penttilä

CanmetMATERIALS, Hamilton, Canada.
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Materials for Power Engineering, Espoo, Finland.

DOI: 10.4236/jmmce.2014.22017                

Abstract

The Canadian Generation-IV supercritical water reactor (SCWR) requires peak cladding surface temperature of 800℃ for a core outlet temperature of 625℃. Materials selection for high temperature fuel cladding is becoming one of the major challenging tasks. Austenitic stainless steels with excellent corrosion resistance are often susceptible to stress corrosion cracking upon SCW exposure. Low-Cr steels such as P91 exhibit good high-temperature mechanical properties, but the lack of sufficient Cr content makes this group of alloys corrode too fast. One possible solution is to use coatings or surface modification techniques to improve the surface resistance to corrosion. In this study, we investigated the effect of surface modification on commercial 316L stainless steel. Surface modification by mechanical deformation has marked improvement in corrosion resistance during SCW exposure. Possible mechanisms for such improvement are discussed.

Keywords

SCW; Surface Modification; FIB

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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