In-Situ Corrosion Studies on Cast Steel for a High-Level Waste Packaging in a Rock Salt Repository

Abstract

ABSTRACTPrevious corrosion studies performed on a number of materials have shown that unalloyed steels are promising materials for long-term resistant packagings to be used in disposal of heat-generating wastes in rock salt formations. This is the reason why those steels are the subject of more detailed investigations. This paper reports an in-situ experiment conducted in the Asse salt mine in which the influence of selected characteristics (welding, shape) of containers on the corrosion behaviour of cast steel was studied. The material was tested in NaCl brine which might intrude into an HLW borehole in an accident scenario. For this, an electron beam welded cast-steel tube was stored for 18 months in a 2-m deep heated borehole and the annular gap between the tube and the borehole wall was filled with saturated NaCl brine. The vertical temperature profile in the borehole was in the range from 90°C to 200°C; the maximum temperature occurred in the center of the heated zone and the minimum temperature in the upper parts of tube.Under the testing conditions cast steel was subjected to general corrosion at a maximum corrosion rate of 120 μm/a. Considering this magnitude of the corrosion rates, the resulting corrosion allowances are technically acceptable for a packaging having long service-lives. Pitting and crevice corrosion as well as stress-corrosion cracking did not occur in cast steel, and electron beam welding did not exert a noticeable influence on cast-steel corrosion. With these results available, cast steel continues to be considered as a promising HLW packaging material.