Nuclear Plant Journal, January-February 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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Reducing Radiation
Exposure
By Michael Matz
Culminating almost 30 years
of materials research, EPRI has
demonstrated in the laboratory a new
alloy for hardfacing select nuclear plant
components to improve their resistance
to wear and galling, a form of damage
in which material is extracted from the
component’s surface. Use of this alloy,
called NitroMaxx, will also help reduce
worker radiation exposure. EPRI is
seeking to patent NitroMaxx and in 2015
continued to characterize its properties
through laboratory and field testing.
A Tale of Three Hardfacing Alloys:
Stellite, NOREM, and NitroMaxx
Power plant components are typically
made by forging or casting metals and
then applying surface treatments called
hardfacings to provide resistance to wear
and galling. In nuclear plants, cobalt-
based hardfacing alloys, such as Stellite,
have been used for many years because
of their weldability and wear resistance.
But breakdown of such materials releases
elemental cobalt, which is transported
Palo Verde Unit 3 reactor vessel has 61 bottom-mounted instrumentation
nozzles.
