Review on Steel Enhancement for Nuclear RPVs

Abstract

The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is one of the most important elements of a nuclear power plant (NPP). The RPV determines the plant operational lifetime since it is not replaceable economically. The purpose of the RPV steel study and enhancement to increase the NPP’s (Nuclear Power Plants) operation lifetime from the original 30–40 years up to 60–80 years or even beyond. The RPV lifetime limited by ageing of the RPV steels. RPV ageing highly depends on the main environmental effects: fast neutron radiation, thermal effects causing thermal ageing and low-cycle fatigue. Firstly, the chemical composition via aged mechanical properties was studied. Efforts to increase the toughness against the radiation embrittlement was enhanced by the appearance of the modern microstructural testing devices such as APFIM (atom probe field ion microscopy), SANS (small-angle neutron scattering) positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Mössbauer spectroscopy (MS). The information on the effect of alloying and polluting elements for the microstructure allowed us to produce increased ageing toughness of the RPVs, and to enhance the safety and lifetime calculations of them, supporting long-term safe operation (LTO).