Study of Liquid Lead Corrosion of Fast Nuclear Reactorand Its Mitigation by Using Molecular Dynamics Method

Abstract

Corrosion of iron in lead liquid coolant of fast nuclear reactor was studied using the molecular dynamics simulation method. The main goal of this work is to investigate effect of oxygen injection into lead coolant in order to reduce the corrosion rate of iron (major component of clad steel). By evaluating the mean square displacement curves, radial distribution function curves, iron diffusion coefficients and also observed the crystal structure of iron before and after oxygen injection then we concluded that the best value for significant, efficient and effective reduction of pure iron corrosion will be achieved by injection of 1.00% oxygen atoms (compared to the number of coolant atoms) into lead coolant, at temperature 750 oC. The corrosion rate had been reduced to the level of 2.09%, compared without oxygen injection.