Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Neutron irradiation of alloy N and 316L stainless steel in contact with a molten chloride salt

  • Ezell, N. Dianne Bull (Oak Ridge National Lab) ;
  • Raiman, Stephen S. (Oak Ridge National Lab) ;
  • Kurley, J. Matt (Oak Ridge National Lab) ;
  • McDuffee, Joel (Oak Ridge National Lab)
  • Received : 2020.06.08
  • Accepted : 2020.07.31
  • Published : 2021.03.25
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Abstract

Capsules containing NaCl-MgCl2 salt with 316L stainless steel or alloy N samples were irradiated in the Ohio State University Research Reactor for 21 nonconsecutive hours. A custom irradiation vessel was designed for this purpose, and details on its design and construction are given. Stainless steel samples that were irradiated during exposure had less corrosive attack than samples exposed to the same conditions without irradiation. Alloy N samples showed no significant effect of irradiation. This work shows a method for conducting in-reactor irradiation-corrosion experiments in static molten salts and presents preliminary data showing that neutron irradiation may decelerate corrosion of alloys in molten chloride salts.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

For a project of this scale, a large group of ORNL researchers and technicians was required to make this irradiation possible, including Dino Sulejmanovic, Dave Bryant, Adam Willoughby, Richard Mayes, and Kurt Smith. The authors would like to acknowledge Ohio State University graduate student Neil Taylor for the activation analysis performed for this experiment, and the LAMDA team at ORNL for the PIE performed on the corrosion specimens. Also, the OSU research reactor staff. ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle LLC for the US Department of Energy. Advanced Reactor Technologies within the Office of Nuclear Energy supported this work under the Molten Salt Reactor Campaign.

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