Dry flowing abrasive decontamination technique for pipe systems with swirling air flow

Kameo, Yutaka ; Nakashima, Mikio; Hirabayashi, Takakuni*

Erosion behavior of stainless and carbon steel pipes by a swirling air flow containing alumina or cast-iron grit abrasive was investigated. Effects of operating conditions such as an abrasive concentration and a flow rate of air-stream on erosion ability was examined. Erosion depths of the test pipes were approximately proportional to the concentration of abrasives and exponent of flow rate of air-stream. The experimental results indicated that the present method could keep satisfactory erosion ability of abrasives even for a large size pipe. The present method was successfully applied to Co-contaminated specimens sampled from a pipe of the water clean-up system of the Japan Power Demonstration Reactor.