The Corrosion of Iron in Sodium and The Influence of Alloying Elements on its Mass Transfer Behaviour

Abstract

In order to establish what factors affect the corrosion behaviour of iron and ironbase alloys in liquid sodium simple experiments have been conducted in pumped loop and static sodium environments at the Risley Nuclear Laboratories (RNL) using pure iron and iron-base alloys containing different amounts of oxidising elements. The main purpose of the experiments has been to try and establish the role of oxygen in the corrosion process and how certain alloying elements can change the corrosion mechanism from one of surface corrosion to one of internal oxidation. This paper reports the findings from these experiments and highlights those factors which have to be taken into consideration in the formula-tion of corrosion models for constructional steels in sodium.