Disposition Curves for Irradiation-Assisted Stress Corrosion Cracking of Austenitic Stainless Steels in Light Water Reactor Environments

Abstract

This paper presents irradiation-assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) disposition curves developed in a multi-year international data collection, data review and modeling project. More than 800 IASCC crack growth rate (CGR) data points were collected from six laboratories worldwide, and an international panel of experts reviewed and ranked the data. The better-ranked data were used to calibrate empirical models for IASCC CGR in boiling water reactor (BWR) normal water chemistry (NWC) and hydrogen water chemistry (HWC) environments and in pressurized water reactor (PWR) primary water environments. The mean models were shifted upward to the 75th percentile of the calibration data for use as crack disposition curves. The disposition curves are presented in this paper and compared with data used for fitting and data not used for fitting, including field data from BWR core shrouds and additional laboratory data. The paper is intended as a basis document for possibly incorporating the new disposition curves in the ASME code.