The mobility of corrosion products is usually a concern in any process involving fluid flow. In a chemical plant, the result may be fouling of heat exchangers. In a water-cooled nuclear power reactor, fouling of fuel element surfaces is one result; the growth of radiation fields from radioactive corrosion products is another. The corrosion products are released to the flowing coolant, chiefly by slowly-corroding piping surfaces outside the reactor core. The dissolved and suspended corrosion products are carried into the core where some of them deposit. After being irradiated by neutrons for a time, the mixture of radioactive and inactive corrosion products is released to the coolant and carried outside the core, where they deposit again. The radioactive corrosion products, such as Co-60, Co-58 and Fe-59, decay to more stable nuclides but emit gamma rays during decay. Consequently, gamma radiation fields gradually grow around the working areas of the primary heat transport circuit. These fields can make maintenance and operation expensive.

Subject
Water, Fluxes, Hydrogen concentration, Dissolved hydrogen, Solubility, Acidity, Corrosion products, Deposition rate, Heat, Magnetite, Deposit corrosion, Elements, Spalling
© 1978 Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of AMPP. Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
1978
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
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