ANALYSES OF THERMAL ANNEALING INFLUENCE ON WWER 440 REACTOR PRESSURE VESSEL INTERNALS MATERIALS

1 Petelová Petra
Co-authors:
1 Eliášová Ivana 1 Kopřiva Radim 1 Buršík Ondřej 1 Tonarová Dana 2 Materna Aleš
Institutions:
1 ÚJV Řež, a. s., Husinec, Czech Republic, EU, petra.petelova@ujv.cz, ivana.eliasova@ujv.cz, ondrej.bursik@ujv.cz radim.kopriva@ujv.cz, dana.tonarova@ujv.cz
2 Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Prague, Czech Republic, EU, ales.materna@fjfi.cz
Conference:
28th International Conference on Metallurgy and Materials, Hotel Voronez I, Brno, Czech Republic, EU, May 22nd - 24th 2019
Proceedings:
Proceedings 28th International Conference on Metallurgy and Materials
Pages:
787-792
ISBN:
978-80-87294-92-5
ISSN:
2694-9296
Published:
4th November 2019
Proceedings of the conference were published in Web of Science and Scopus.
Metrics:
522 views / 312 downloads
Abstract

Thermal annealing is a proven material treatment method applicable to WWER type reactor pressure vessels with the aim of prolonging their operational lifetime. However, reactor pressure vessel internals of nuclear power plants are exposed to more severe operating conditions (high pressure and temperatures, higher neutron flux, corrosion environment), which cause gradual degradation of their mechanical properties. Thermal annealing can be one of the possible solutions to re-establish initial mechanical properties of reactor pressure vessel internals materials and thus can contribute to long term operation of nuclear power plants. This paper presents results of mechanical properties evaluation (especially hardness) of non-annealed and annealed state of material of WWER 440 – type reactor internals in initial un-irradiated conditions. Within the project an extensive program of experimental activities realized on un-irradiated materials in initial, work hardened, and annealed state was performed to create basis for further analyses on irradiated structural materials. As an integral part of experimental activities microstructural analyses were also incorporated to study of structural changes of non-annealed and annealed material. This paper includes results obtained within the project TH02020565 “Assurance of Safe and Long-Term Operation of Nuclear Pressure Vessel Internals” which is realized by ÚJV Řež, a. s. in cooperation with Czech Technical University in Prague, FNSPE, in the period from 2017 to 2020 with the support of Technology Agency of the Czech Republic.

Keywords: Thermal annealing, mechanical properties, WWER 440 type reactor internals

© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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