Structural materials stainless steels

This process of melting down of the reactor core inside the reactor pressure vessel is associated with an extensive release of the volatile fission products and a partial volatilization of the other fission products, uranium and the actinides (invessel release). The volatilized fuel constituents are transported by the steam-hydrogen flow out of the core region, together with volatilized fractions of the core structural materials (stainless steels, Ni alloys). 

Types of structural materials Stainless steel for reactor internals... 

Contact with steel, though less harmful, may accelerate attack on aluminium, but in some natural waters and other special cases aluminium can be protected at the expense of ferrous materials. Stainless steels may increase attack on aluminium, notably in sea-water or marine atmospheres, but the high electrical resistance of the two surface oxide films minimises bimetallic effects in less aggressive environments. Titanium appears to behave in a similar manner to steel. Aluminium-zinc alloys are used as sacrificial anodes for steel structures, usually with trace additions of tin, indium or mercury to enhance dissolution characteristics and render the operating potential more electronegative. 

Housing material Stainless steel Width of micro-structured stack 7.9 mm... 

One material that has wide application in the systems of DOE facilities is stainless steel. There are nearly 40 standard types of stainless steel and many other specialized types under various trade names. Through the modification of the kinds and quantities of alloying elements, the steel can be adapted to specific applications. Stainless steels are classified as austenitic or ferritic based on their lattice structure. Austenitic stainless steels, including 304 and 316, have a face-centered cubic structure of iron atoms with the carbon in interstitial solid solution. Ferritic stainless steels, including type 405, have a body-centered cubic iron lattice and contain no nickel. Ferritic steels are easier to weld and fabricate and are less susceptible to stress corrosion cracking than austenitic stainless steels. They have only moderate resistance to other types of chemical attack. 

Structural materials Vessel steel with welding deposition of stainless steel. The fuel assembly is made of austenitic steel. 

In dry environments and carefully controlled fluids, many materials can be used - and these often may be left unprotected. Under atmospheric conditions, even polluted atmospheres, such metals as stainless steels and aluminum alloys do not need protection. Also, copper and lead have long lives. In a more severe wet environment, for example in marine conditions, it is generally more economical to use relatively cheap structural materials (mild steel) and apply additional protection, rather than use more expensive options. For the severest corrosive conditions it is preferable in most cases to use materials resistant to the corrosive, than to use cheaper material with expensive protection. 

The technique presented above has been extensively evaluated experimentally using ultrasonic data acquired from a test block made of cast stainless steel with cotirse material structure. Here we briefly present selected results obtained using two pressure wave transducers, with refraction angles of 45° and 0°. The -lOdB frequency ranges of the transducers were 1.4-2.8 MHz and 0.7-1.4 MHz, respectively. The ultrasonic response signals were sampled at a rate of 40 MHz, with a resolution of 8 bits, prior to computer processing. 

The value that is added during light-and medium-engineering work is larger, and this usually means that the economic constraint on the choice of materials is less severe - a far greater proportion of the cost of the structure is that associated with labour or with production and fabrication. Stainless steels, most alumiruum alloys and most polymers cost between UK 500 and UK 5000 (US 750 and US 7500) per... 

The discussion so far has been limited to the structure of pure metals, and to the defects which exist in crysteds comprised of atoms of one element only. In fact, of course, pure metals are comparatively rare and all commercial materials contain impurities and, in many cases also, deliberate alloying additions. In the production of commercially pure metals and of alloys, impurities are inevitably introduced into the metal, e.g. manganese, silicon and phosphorus in mild steel, and iron and silicon in aluminium alloys. However, most commercial materials are not even nominally pure metals but are alloys in which deliberate additions of one or more elements have been made, usually to improve some property of the metal examples are the addition of carbon or nickel and chromium to iron to give, respectively, carbon and stainless steels and the addition of copper to aluminium to give a high-strength age-hardenable alloy. 

A prepassivated platinum electrode and an electrode of the metal of interest have been used to follow the development of a biofilm to determine its effects on the corrosion behavior of structural materials. The time dependence of the open circuit potential of several stainless steels... 

A schematic cross-section of a p-i-n a-Si H solar cell [11] is shown in Figure 72a. In this so-called superstrate configuration (the light is incident from above), the material onto which the solar cell structure is deposited, usually glass, also serves as a window to the cell. In a substrate configuration the carrier onto which the solar cell structure is deposited forms the back side of the solar cell. The carrier usually is stainless steel, but flexible materials such as metal-coated polymer foil (e.g. polyimid) ora very thin metal make the whole structure flexible [11]. 

The selection of materials for high-temperature applications is discussed by Day (1979). At low temperatures, less than 10°C, metals that are normally ductile can fail in a brittle manner. Serious disasters have occurred through the failure of welded carbon steel vessels at low temperatures. The phenomenon of brittle failure is associated with the crystalline structure of metals. Metals with a body-centred-cubic (bcc) lattice are more liable to brittle failure than those with a face-centred-cubic (fee) or hexagonal lattice. For low-temperature equipment, such as cryogenic plant and liquefied-gas storages, austenitic stainless steel (fee) or aluminium alloys (hex) should be specified see Wigley (1978). 

As regards the heat conduction through the solid parts of a cryostat, in the choice of the structural materials a compromise is sought for a low thermal conductivity and suitable mechanical properties. When possible, disordered materials are used in the case of metals, low-conductivity alloys are used as Cu-Ni or stainless steel, in the form of thin-walled tubes. In the evaluation of the heat conduction, the most useful data are the thermal conductivity integrals shown in Fig. 5.2 for some structural materials. The thermal conductivity integral between two temperatures TL and rH is defined as ... 

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