Effects of annealing time on the recovery of Charpy V-notch properties of irradiated high-copper weld metal

One of the options to mitigate the effects of irradiation on reactor pressure vessels is to thermally anneal them to restore the toughness properties that have been degraded by neutron irradiation. An important issue to be resolved is the effect on the toughness properties of reirradiating a vessel that has been annealed. This paper describes the annealing response of irradiated high-copper submerged-arc weld HSSI 73W. For this study, the weld has been annealed at 454 C (850 F) for lengths of time varying between 1 and 14 days. The Charpy V-notch 41-J (30-ft-lb) transition temperature (TT41J) almost fully recovered for the longest period studied, but recovered to a lesser degree for the shorter periods. No significant recovery of the TT41J was observed for a 7-day anneal at 343 C (650 F). At 454 C for the durations studied, the values of the upper-shelf impact energy of irradiated and annealed weld metal exceeded the values in the unirradiated condition. Similar behavior was observed after aging the unirradiated weld metal at 460 and 490 C for 1 week