Pressurized Water Reactor Environment Effect on 316 Stainless Steel Stress Hardening/Softening: An Experimental Study

In USA there are approximately 100 operating light water reactors (LWR) consisting fleet of both pressurized water reactors (PWR) and boiling water reactors (BWR). Most of these reactors were built before 1970 and the design lives of most of these reactors are 40 years. It is expected that by 2030, even those reactors that have received 20 year life extension license from the US nuclear regulatory commission (NRC) will begin to reach the end of their licensed periods of operation. For economical reason it is be beneficial to extend the license beyond 60 to perhaps 80 years that would enable existing plants to continue providing safe, clean and economic electricity without significant green house gas emissions. However, environmental fatigue is one of the major aging related issues for these reactors, and may create hurdles in long term sustainability of these reactors. To address some of the environmental fatigue related issues, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) with the sponsorship of Department of Energy’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program trying to develop mechanistic approach for more accurate life estimation of LWR components. In this context ANL conducted many fatigue experiments under different test and environment conditions on 316 stainless steel (316SS) material that is or similar grade steels are widely used in US reactors. Contrary to the conventional S∼N curve based empirical fatigue life estimation approach, the aim of the present DOE sponsored work is to understand material ageing more mechanistically (e.g. time dependent hardening and softening) under different test and environmental conditions. Better mechanistic understanding will help to develop computer based advanced modeling tools to better extrapolate stress-strain evolution of reactor component under multi-axial stress states and hence to help predicting their fatigue life more accurately. In this paper (part-I) the fatigue experiments under different test and environment conditions and related stress-strain results for 316 SS are discussed. In another paper (part-II) the related evolutionary cyclic plasticity material modeling techniques and results are discussed.