Development of High Irradiation Resistant and Corrosion Resistant Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Austenitic Stainless Steels

The next generation of light water reactors, resource renewable BWR (RBWR), which can be burned trans uranium (TRU) is currently under development at Hitachi. The RBWR requires a high flux of fast neutron for efficient burning of the TRU, which is four times as large as that of the ABWR. Therefore, structural materials require both a high resistance to corrosion and to irradiation. In this study, oxide dispersion strengthened austenitic stainless steels (ODS-ASUS) with high corrosion resistance have been developed. The objective of this research is to evaluate irradiation resistance and SCC susceptibility in a simulated reactor water environment for the ODS-ASUS. The materials were irradiated with 6.4 MeV Fe3+ at 673 K up to 8.0 dpa using the DuET facility at Kyoto University. The creviced bent beam (CBB) test is conducted to assess the SCC susceptibility in the hot water, 288 °C, 8 MPa with a dissolved oxygen of 8 ppm.