Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2015 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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Kinectrics provides a one-stop
shop for outage inspections
and field services.
Major Components
• Fuel Channels (TSS, CWEST), PHT
Niche Inspection Services
• Rapid Response
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Concrete Inspection & Testing
• Reactor Buildings
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Failure Investigations
Removal & Recovery
• Hot Particles
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Environmental Services
• Air & Stack Testing / Monitoring
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Aquatic Life Services
• Zebra Mussel Removal & Management
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FIELD SERVICES
OUTAGE INSPECTION & TESTING
Research &
Development
Radiation Damage
A new technique that can rapidly
simulate radiation damage for reactor
materials will inform decision regarding
extended operations potentially to 80
years and beyond.
Sometimes, from a technical
perspective, more radiation can be
a good thing. EPRI is developing a
breakthrough approach for simulating
the aging of austenitic stainless steels in
high fluence light water reactor (LWR)
environments beyond 60 or more years of
operation. If successfully developed and
qualified, this innovative method would
support condition assessment of reactor
internal components far more quickly,
and at much lower cost, than is currently
possible. It also would provide essential
data in a more timely fashion for ensuring
nuclear plant safety over extended periods
of operations.
Current understanding of the
aging of reactor materials under long
term irradiation is incomplete. Today’s
accelerated exposure methods using
prototypical LWR radiation require
many years to achieve high levels of
fluence representative of extended
operations, resulting in high costs
and high vulnerability to interruption
in the exposure sequence. Improved
simulation methods are needed to assist
the industry and regulators in assessing
how mechanical properties and resistance
to irradiation assisted stress corrosion
cracking (IASCC) may change over time.
In October 2014, EPRI launched a
five year project to fill this key technology
gap by accelerating the development
and experimental validation of a novel
simulation approach based on surrogate
radiation exposures. In experiments
beginning in 2015, heavy ion and high
flux neutron irradiation will be applied to
austenitic stainless steel samples both pre
irradiated and virgin materials to achieve
high levels of fluence several times faster
than prototypical LWR irradiations.
