The Study of Temperature Dependent Magnetite Precipitation Constant from CANDU-6 Station Data

Abstract

Fouling and accumulation of radioactive species in the steam generator of nuclear power plants have been issues regarding operational safety and reliability. The Corrosion And Radioactivity Transport Analysis (CARTA), thus, has been developed to predict material and radioactivity transport in the primary heat transport system of the nuclear power plants, currently specific for the CANDU-6 reactor, which can be used to estimate the operating time before refurbishment of the plants. CARTA includes modelling of oxide loading accumulated due to corrosion. The aims of the research are to determine the temperature dependence of the precipitation constant of magnetite, the main solid corrosion product in Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) stations, and to incorporate this into CARTA for more accurate predictive modelling of steam generator fouling. Primary-side oxide loading data from a CANDU-6 nuclear generation station were used to interpolate the growth rate of magnetite. These data were filtered using a data extractor developed in this work. Preliminary estimates for the kinetics of magnetite precipitation, obtained using the data extractor and CARTA are presented here.