Corrosion behavior of ODS steels with several chromium contents in hot nitric acid solutions

Tanno, Takashi  ; Takeuchi, Masayuki ; Otsuka, Satoshi   ; Kaito, Takeji 

Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steel cladding tubes have been developed for fast reactors. 9 chromium ODS and 11Cr-ODS tempered martensitic steels are prioritized for the candidate material in research being carried out at JAEA. In this work, fundamental immersion tests and electro-chemical tests of 9 to 12Cr-ODS steels were systematically conducted in various nitric acid solutions at 95C. The corrosion rate exponentially decreased with effective solute chromium concentration (Cr) and nitric acid concentration. Addition of oxidizing ions also suppressed the corrosion rate. According to polarization curves and surface observations in this work, the combination of low Cr and dilute nitric acid could not prevent the active dissolution at the beginning of immersion, and the corrosion rate was high. In comparison, higher Cr, concentrated nitric acid and addition of oxidizing ions helped to prevent the active dissolution, and suppressed the corrosion rate.