ERICE: Corrosion rate monitoring and diagnosis in the heating circuits of nuclear power plants

The corrosion of the metallic materials, is one of the most damaging factors that destroy economical and ecological resources. Many problems encountered in thermal plants for electrical power production are related to corrosion. In order to improve results in controlling corrosion, the authors decided to build an expert system, which performs on-line corrosion rate monitoring by means of a number of probes connected to an automatic corrosimeter, evaluates expected corrosion rate values and behaviors. If there are discrepancies, the expert system performs a diagnosis, providing suggestions to overcome the difficulty and to execute the right water treatments