Hongliang Ming

Microstructure, Residual Strain and Stress Corrosion Cracking Behavior in 316L Heat-Affected Zone

Austenitic stainless steels are usually chosen to make many components of nuclear power plants (NPPs). However, their microstructure in the heat-affected zone (HAZ) will change during the welding process. Some failures of the weld joints, mainly stress corrosion cracking (SCC), have been found to be located in the HAZ. In this research, the microstructure, micro-hardness, residual strain and SCC behavior at different locations of the 316L HAZ cut from a safe-end dissimilar metal weld joint were studied. However, traditional optical microscope observation could not find any microstructural difference between the HAZ and the base metal, higher residual strain and micro-hardness, and higher fraction of random high-angle grain boundaries were found in the HAZ than in the base metal when studied by using electron back-scattering diffraction scanning and micro-hardness test. What’s more, the residual strain, the micro-hardness and the fraction of random grain boundaries decreased, while the fraction of coincidence site lattice grain boundaries increased with increasing the distance from the fusion boundary in 316L HAZ. Creviced bent beam test was applied to evaluate the SCC susceptibility at different locations of 316L HAZ and base metal. It was found that the HAZ had higher SCC susceptibility than the base metal and SCC resistance increased when increasing the distance from the fusion boundary in 316L HAZ.

Oxidation and Electrochemical Behavior of Monolayer-Graphene-Coated Copper in Simulated Primary Water

In high-temperature and high-pressure water, traditional anticorrosion approaches are not suitable to be used to protect structural materials from oxidation and corrosion. In this study, monolayer graphene was explored as a barrier to protect the materials from degradation. The oxidation and corrosion rate of the monolayer-graphene-coated copper is much lower than that of the bare copper, suggesting that the monolayer graphene can effectively protect the copper from oxidation and corrosion in the simulated primary water of pressurized water reactors.