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Effects of the Alloy Design and Fabrication Process on Mechanical Properties of Mo + V-Added SA508 Gr.1A Steel for Main Steam Line Piping in Nuclear Power Plants

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Abstract

To apply the leak-before-break (LBB) design to main steam line (MSL) piping in nuclear power plants, higher strength and relatively tough SA508 Gr.1A steel were developed by changing the alloy design and fabrication process. Two actual-size prototype types of MSL piping (M1 and M2) with different contents of C, Mo, and V were fabricated and their mechanical properties were evaluated and compared with those of commercial SA508 Gr.1A steel. In the alloy design, the content of C was decreased to reduce the degree to which cementite deteriorated the toughness, and Mo and V were added to increase the strength by forming bainite and VC precipitates. During the fabrication process, the thickness of the MSL piping was minimized by rough machining before a heat treatment to increase the strength by increasing the cooling rate during quenching. Both prototype steels had better strength and toughness than commercial steel. In particular, the mechanical properties of M2 with lower alloy contents had a good combination of strength and toughness. The yield strength, USE, and JIc of M2 were 407 MPa, 393 J and 680 kJ/m2 at 286 °C, respectively, which were increased by 167 MPa, 90 J, and 98 kJ/m2 compared to the correspondingly parameters of commercial steel. The LBB margin of MSL piping using M2 steels was 1.49, which was a 30% higher than those using commercial steels.

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The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared at this time as the data also form part of an ongoing study.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (2021M2E4A1037978) and by the project “Development of Technologies for Improving Mechanical Properties of Main Steam Piping” funded by KHNP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Safety Technology Development Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon, 34057, Republic of Korea

    Seokmin Hong, Se-Mi Hyun, Jongmin Kim & Min-Chul Kim

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, 02841, Republic of Korea

    Se-Mi Hyun

  3. Materials Engineering Group, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd., Daejeon, 34101, Republic of Korea

    Yo-Seob Lee & Maan-Won Kim

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  1. Seokmin Hong
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Hong, S., Hyun, SM., Kim, J. et al. Effects of the Alloy Design and Fabrication Process on Mechanical Properties of Mo + V-Added SA508 Gr.1A Steel for Main Steam Line Piping in Nuclear Power Plants. Met. Mater. Int. 29, 693–704 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12540-022-01267-9

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