X-ray diffraction technique 'maps' strain and crack propagation in metallic tubing

(Press-News.org) Contact information: Alysa Reich
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NACE International
X-ray diffraction technique 'maps' strain and crack propagation in metallic tubing

A team of researchers exploring the intergranular stress corrosion cracking of a type of metallic tubing used within nuclear power plants has developed a technique to both map and predict its propagation.

Metallic tubing plays a key role in transporting water coolant to steam generators within nuclear power plants. But for reasons that remain elusive, in this application, Alloy 600, a high-strength nickel-based alloy widely used and considered robust in other high-performance situations, is susceptible to costly failure caused by intergranular stress corrosion cracking.

A team of researchers delved into this longstanding technical issue by using an x-ray diffraction technique to measure structural changes within microscopic areas on the metallic tubing, which they describe in a paper in CORROSION journal.

"Failures of Alloy 600 are preceded by mechanical strains, but the location of this type of strain is often a tiny area only a few microns wide, which has been mechanically damaged by a physical process like a micro scratch or a chemical process such as rapid local corrosion," explains Stewart McIntyre, co-author of the paper and an emeritus professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada.

It's important to "identify the very tiny areas on samples that are under local tensile stresses—because these stresses can pull a material apart at the boundary between two metal grains," McIntyre says.

To zero in on these areas under local tensile stresses, McIntyre and colleagues turned to a very small and coherent x-ray beam of the sort produced in synchrotrons, such as the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

"With such facilities we can 'map' the location of strains to determine whether their direction is likely to result in crack propagation in the future," says McIntyre.

Next up? The researchers plan to study the effects of external stresses of different magnitudes imposed on boiler tubing made from Alloy 600, as well as its new replacement, Alloy 690.



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More Information: The paper, "Mapping of Microscopic Strain Distributions in an Alloy 600 C-Ring After Application of Hoop Stresses and Stress Corrosion Cracking," written by N.S. McIntyre, J. Ulagnathan, T. Simpson, J. Qin, N. Sherry, M. Bauer, A.G. Carcea, R.C. Newman, M. Kunz, and N. Tamura, appears in NACE International's journal, CORROSION, Jan. 2014, Vol. 70, No. 1, pp. 66-73. See: http://dx.doi.org/10.5006/1006

About NACE International: Founded in 1943, NACE International, The Corrosion Society, serves 30,000 members in 130 countries. Based in Houston, Texas, with offices in the U.S., China, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia, the organization reaches all industries impacted by corrosion and offers the most specified technical training and certification programs, conferences, industry standards, reports, publications, and software to prevent and mitigate corrosion. NACE International provides members with career and business building resources, government relations and public awareness support, and research and education to support the pursuit of global corrosion control solutions.

CORROSION is a technical research journal devoted to furthering the knowledge of corrosion science and engineering. The technical articles selected for publication in CORROSION provide a permanent record of the latest progress in the science and technology of corrosion control. The journal is directed at scientists and engineers concerned with the phenomena of corrosion processes and the protection of materials in corrosive environments. For more information, please visit http://corrosionjournal.org.