SCC susceptibility analysis of stainless steels in nuclear reactor water: a neural network and expert system approach

Abstract

Stress corrosion cracking is one of the most troublesome phenomena encountered in boiling water nuclear reactors. The sensitivity of stainless steels to stress corrosion cracking in high-temperature water can be modelled by means of neural networks. The neural network described in this paper learned to recognise the combined effect of temperature, chloride and oxygen concentration on the occurrence of stress corrosion cracking. In order to yield a more thorough corrosion risk assessment also taking into account additional factors, such as stress level, degree of sensitisation, etc., the latest available expert system technology, which offers the possibility of accessing different knowledge sources (rules, mathematical models, neural networks, ...) at the same time, is put to use.