Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
2002 International RERTR Meeting

CORROSION SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMME FOR LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH REACTOR AL-CLAD SPENT FUEL IN WATER

L.V.Ramanathan¹, R.Haddad² and I.Ritchie³

1. I.P.E.N., Sao Paulo, Brazil and presently on assignment at the IAEA, ViennaAustria,

2. C.N.E.A., Buenos Aires. 3. I.A.E.A., Vienna, Austria.

ABSTRACT

Corrosion surveillance is one of the programmes within the IAEA sponsored Regional Project for Latin America RLA/4/018. The participating countries in this project and the corrosion surveillance programme are Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil with 12 spent fuel storage basins. This programme was initiated to serve as a complementary experimental exercise in the overall assessment in each country of the physical state of irradiated fuel inventories and their storage conditions. In particular, a major objective is to harmonize within the Region, spent fuel wet storage through: (a) water quality standards, monitoring and control, and (b) corrosion monitoring using racks of standard corrosion coupons made from alloys found within the storage basins, especially fuel cladding. Much of the methodology used in designing the tests and the procedures for monitoring water parameters are based on data from phase-I of the IAEA’s CRP on “ Corrosion of research reactor Al-clad spent fuel in water”.

This programme introduces certain changes in rack design, coupon evaluation technique, criteria for choice of location for immersion of test coupon rack. Specific laboratory tests, depending on peculiarities of the storage pool, are being encouraged to complement long term immersion data. The effect of sediments on pit initiation of Al coupons will be determined. The first set of racks are expected to be withdrawn in June/July 2003. This paper will present and discuss details about the corrosion test rack, introduction of changes in standard procedures and overall expected feedback to complement other spent fuel characterization data.

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