An Experimental Study on Corrosion Behavior of SS 316L in Liquid Gallium and Gallium Alloys

摘要

Since liquid metals such as sodium and lead or LBE are excellent heat transfer agents, extensive researches have been performed for the use as coolants of fast breeder reactors. While sodium has been challenged by its high chemical activity with water and air, lead or LBE have known to have issues related to corrosion with structural alloys at high temperature and Po-generation in Pb-Bi cooled nuclear systems. This study suggests gallium as potential coolant for the primary or secondary circuit of advanced nuclear systems. Gallium possesses a low melting point (29°C), a high boiling point (2204°C) and no issue of chemical activity and radioactivity increase by irradiation. However, the absorption cross section of gallium is rather high, 2.2 barns per atom [1], which is a drawback, but it can be manageable to a certain degree because the cross section could be reduced by proper alloying with elements with lower absorption cross section.