Development and Implementation of the Bruce B Secondary Side Flow Accelerated Corrosion Program

Abstract

An inspection program for the detection of wall thinning due to erosion-corrosion (E-C), also known as flow accelerated corrosion (FAC), has been in place at Bruce B since 1987. The purpose of this program is to prevent injuries to personnel or losses in production by monitoring the integrity of secondary side system- piping susceptible to this damage mechanism. Bruce B is a four unit CANDU Station, each unit 860 Mw net output with in-service dates of March 1985, September 1984, April 1986 and May 1987 for Units 5, 6, 7 and 8 respectively. To date two inspections have been completed in all units, with a third inspection performed in Units 5, 6 and 7. There have been few occurrences of significant wall thinning requiring the replacement of components or of system failures. This is an evolving program, and as it has matured it has been modified to reflect improvements in the inspection methods and the processing of the inspection results.