Corrosion analysis of decommissioned carbon steel waste water tanks at Brookhaven National Laboratory

摘要

A corrosion analysis was carried out on available sections of carbon steels taken from two decommissioned radioactive waste water tanks at Brookhaven National Laboratory. One of the 100,000 gallon tanks suffered from a pinhole failure in the wall which was subsequently patched. From the analysis it was shown that this leak, and two adjacent leaks were initiated by a discarded copper heating coil that had been dropped into the tank during service. The failure mechanism is postulated to have been galvanic attack at points of contact between the tank structure and the coil. Other leaks in the two tanks are also described in this report.