Abstract
Pipe wall thinning caused by erosion and corrosion can adversely affect the operation of aged nuclear power plants. Some injured workers owing to pipe rupture has been reported and power reduction caused by unexpected pipe damage has been occurred consistently. Therefore, it is important to develop erosion-corrosion damage prediction model and investigate its mechanisms. Especially, liquid droplet impingement erosion(LDIE) is regarded as the main issue of pipe wall thinning management. To investigate LDIE mechanism with corrosion environment, we developed erosion-corrosion damage simulation apparatus and its capability has been verified through the preliminary damage experiment of 6061-Al alloy. The apparatus design has been based on ASTM standard test method, G73-10, that use high-speed rotator and enable to simulate water hammering and droplet impingement. The preliminary test results showed mass loss of 3.2% in conditions of peripheral speed of 110m/s, droplet size of 1mm-diameter, and accumulated time of 3 hours. In this study, the apparatus design revealed feasibility of LDIE damage simulation and provided possibility of accelerated erosion-corrosion damage test by controlling water chemistry.
