▶ Date: 2023. 11. 30(THU)

▶ Time: 4:30 ~ 5:30PM

▶ Venue: Research Building I, #310

▶ Speaker: Dr. Seokmin Hong(KAERI)

▶ Title: Structure Material Research for Nuclear Power Plant

▶ Abstract:

In many industry fields, structural materials are subjected to various material degradation environments and the integrity of components decreases as operation period increases. In particular, in the case of structural materials used in the nuclear power plants (NPPs), the material degradation issues are more important because they require a longer service life and are subjected to irradiation embrittlement due to high-energy neutron exposure. In the case of reactor pressure vessel (RPV), integrity of RPV is the one of the most important component issues related with the life-time of NPPs because RPV cannot be replaced after operation. In this seminar, RPV research issues for operating NPPs and SMR will be presented; surveillance test for commercial NPPs and advanced manufacturing technique for SMR.

Commercial RPV steels possess high strength and excellent toughness to prevent unexpected failure during both normal operation and unanticipated accident conditions. However toughness of RPV decreases as operation period increases due to irradiation embrittlement. Thus integrity of RPV should be secured by surveillance test during whole life-time of NPP, and furthermore proving the integrity of RPV at higher irradiation dose is essential for the license extension of NPPs.

In the case of RPV for SMR, weight and fabrication period of RPV should be considered to increase the SMR competitiveness. For the transportation of SMR components, weight of RPV should be reduced by the application of higher strength steels. Advanced manufacturing technologies such as PM-HIP, EBW, and DLC have been researched to apply RPV for SMR to reduced fabrication period.