Thermoelectric Power: A Nondestructive Method for Monitoring Irradiation Effects in Ferritic Steels

Miloudi, Salem; Jumel, S.; Pareige, P.; Coste, Jean-François; Duysen, JC Van

doi:10.1520/stp12449s

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The objective is to obtain a direct assessment of the evolution of the steel mechanical properties without performing any mechanical tests. In 1997, based on competences from Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) de Lyon, EDF identified a very efficient method for this purpose: the measure of the thermoelectric power of the steel (TEP) [181,182]. Thanks to a "sensor", the method provides the electron response to the application of a temperature gradient.…”

Section: Non-destructive Evaluation Of Irradiation Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

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60th Anniversary of electricity production from light water reactors: Historical review of the contribution of materials science to the safety of the pressure vessel

Duysen

Bellefon

2017

Journal of Nuclear Materials

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The first light water nuclear reactor dedicated to electricity production was commissioned in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in the United States in 1957. Sixty years after the event, it is clear that this type of reactor will be a major source of electricity and one of the key solutions to limit climate change in the 21 st century. This article pays homage to the teams that contributed to this achievement by their involvement in research and development and their determination to push back the frontiers of knowledge. Via a few examples of scientific or technological milestones, it describes the evolution of ideas, models, and techniques during the last 60 years, and gives the current state-of-the-art in areas related to the safety of the reactor pressure vessel. Among other topics, it focuses on vessel manufacturing, steel fracture mechanics analysis, and understanding of irradiation-induced damage.

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Section: Non-destructive Evaluation Of Irradiation Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Correlation between increase in hardness and increase in TEP of a neutron-irradiated RPV steel, with respect to fluence[181].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

60th Anniversary of electricity production from light water reactors: Historical review of the contribution of materials science to the safety of the pressure vessel

Duysen

Bellefon

2017

Journal of Nuclear Materials

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Evaluation of irradiation damage effect by applying electric properties based techniques

Acosta¹,

Filippo²

2004

Nuclear Engineering and Design

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The pressure vessel of the reactor (RPV) in light water reactors (LWR) is a key component for the safe operation of a nuclear power plant, being it part of the containment of the plant and non replaceable. Its life therefore largely delimits the life of the plant. The most important effect of the degradation by radiation is the decrease in the ductility of the RPV ferritic steels. The main way to determine the mechanical behaviour of the RPV steels are tensile and Charpy impact tests, from which the ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT) and its increase due to neutron irradiation can be calculated. These tests are destructive and regularly applied to surveillance specimens to assess the integrity of RPV. The possibility of applying validated non-destructive aging monitoring techniques would however facilitate the surveillance of the materials that form the reactor vessel. On the one hand it would indeed allow in-situ inspection and on the other it would allow saving precious specimens for those surveillance programmes which have an insufficient amount of surveillance material available. The JRC-IAM has developed two devices, focussed on the measurement of the electrical properties to assess nondestructively the embrittlement state of materials. The first technique, called STEAM (Seebeck and Thomson Effects on Aged Material), is based on the measurement of the Seebeck coefficient, characteristic of the material and related to the microstructural changes induced by irradiation embrittlement. With the same aim the second technique, named REAM, measures instead the resistivity of the material. The purpose of these studies is to correlate the results of the Charpy tests, hardness, STEAM and REAM measurements with the change in the mechanical properties due to neutron irradiation. For this purpose different sets of alloys coveting a large spectrum of steels have been used. The alloys are characterised with parametric variation of the content of impurities such Phosphorus, Copper, and Nickel, elements that are known to play a significant role in material characteristic and degradation. The STEAM and REAM techniques have been successfully applied to the model alloys irradiated in the High Flux Reactor of Petten (The Netherlands). The results of this study are shown in the paper and will enable a better understanding of the role and the influence of the above mentioned elements on the mechanical properties of steels. These results will make possible the improvement of such techniques based on the measurement of material electrical properties for their application to the irradiation embrittlement assessment.

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Thermoelectric Power: A Nondestructive Method for Monitoring Irradiation Effects in Ferritic Steels

Cited by 2 publications

References 6 publications

60th Anniversary of electricity production from light water reactors: Historical review of the contribution of materials science to the safety of the pressure vessel

60th Anniversary of electricity production from light water reactors: Historical review of the contribution of materials science to the safety of the pressure vessel

Evaluation of irradiation damage effect by applying electric properties based techniques

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