Ákos Horváth

Statistical mechanics of hydrated electron recombination in liquid and supercritical water

The photochemical yield of hydrated electrons as a function of temperature in liquid and supercritical water is treated in terms of energy fluctuations of the medium. The geminate pair, consisting of a positive ion and a hydrated electron, is regarded as a H-like atom embedded in a completely relaxed dielectric continuum. If the local medium energy is larger than the ionization energy of this atom, the electron escapes its geminate partner. By making use of the classical theory of energy fluctuations, escape probability is described by a simple explicit function, the variable of which is a combination of temperature, relative permittivity, and specific heat. First our earlier calculations on the recombination of solvated electrons, produced by ionizing radiation in a number of polar liquids, are improved and then the theory is compared with the experimental results on temperature dependent electron survival by Kratz et al. [S. Kratz, J. Torres-Alcan, J. Urbanek, J. Lindner, and P. Vöhringer, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 12, 12169 (2010)]. Two adjustable parameters are needed to achieve reasonable quantitative agreement.

Kinetic and statistical analysis of primary circuit water chemistry data in a VVER power plant

Abstract The results of chemical and radiochemical analyses of the primary circuit coolant liquid, obtained between 1995 and 1999 at the four VVER-type blocks of the Paks (Hungary) nuclear power station, are assessed. A model has been developed regarding the pressure vessel with its auxiliary parts plus the fuel elements as the zone, with the six steam generators as one single unit. The stream from the steam generator is split, with its larger part returning to the zone through the main circulating pump and the smaller one passing through the purifier column. Based on this flowchart, the formation kinetics of corrosion products and of radioactive substances are evaluated. Correlation analysis is applied to reveal any eventual interdependence of the processes, whereas the range-per-scatter (R/S) method is used to characterize the random or deterministic nature of a process. The evaluation of the t → ∞ limits of the kinetic equations enables one to conclude that (a) the total amount of corrosion products per element during one cycle is almost always <15 kg and (b) the zone acts as a highly efficient filter with an efficiency of ~1. The R/S results show that the fluctuations in the concentrations of the corrosion products are persistent; this finding indicates that random effects play here little if any role and that the processes in the coolant are under control. Correlation analyses show that the variations of the concentrations are practically uncorrelated and that the processes are independent of each other.

Investigation of effects of long-term thermal aging on magnetization process in low-alloy pressure vessel steels using first-order-reversal-curves

We have investigated effects of long-term thermal aging at 550°C up to 10000 h on major-loop coercivity, hysteresis scaling of minor loops, and first-order reversal curves (FORCs) for low-alloy pressure vessel steels with low and high Ni contents. While major-loop coercivity and minor-loop coefficient of the scaling exhibit a gradual decrease with aging for high-Ni steel, those for low-Ni one are very weakly dependent on aging time. On the other hand, we found that FORC distribution becomes steep along both axes of interaction and switching fields and the peak shifts toward a lower switching field for both steels. Considering that there is no significant development of nanoscale precipitates during the aging as revealed with small-angle neutron scattering experiments, a relaxation of lattice strain in a matrix, possibly associated with diffusion of Ni atoms, may dominate magnetic properties at 550°C.

Insight on the inconsistencies of Barkhausen signal measurements for radiation damage on nuclear reactor steel

This paper focuses on the use of magnetic measurements, using Barkhausen signals to determine the irradiation effects, attempting to predict fracture toughness changes on nuclear reactor structural materials and correlating these measurements to mechanical testing and microstructure. For this study, two types of nuclear reactor materials were investigated: one sensitive to irradiation effects, the JRQ IAEAs reference material (A533B- -type); and one resistant material, 15KH2MFA WWERs reactor pressure vessel steel. The samples were carefully identified within the original heat block, i.e. forged or rolled plate. These calibrated samples were irradiated at different neutron fluences up to 1023 n/m2. We show how microstructural anisotropy can mask the irradiation effects in the magnetic measurements. A correlation between irradiation effects and the magnetic measurements is explained based on this study.