Effective flow-accelerated corrosion programs in nuclear facilities

Piping Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Programs in nuclear power generation facilities are classically comprised of the selection of inspection locations with the assistance of a predictive methodology such as the Electric Power Research Institute computer codes CHECMATE or CHECWORKS, performing inspections, conducting structural evaluations on the inspected components, and implementing the appropriate sample expansion and corrective actions. Performing such a sequence of steps can be effective in identifying thinned components and implementing appropriate short term and long term actions necessary to resolve flow-accelerated corrosion related problems. A maximally effective flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) program requires an understanding of many programmatic details. These include the procedural control of the program, effective use of historical information, managing the activities performed during a limited duration outage, allocating resources based on risk allocation, having an acute awareness of how the plant is operated, investigating components removed from the plant, and several others. This paper will describe such details and methods that will lead to a flow-accelerated corrosion program that effectively minimizes the risk of failure due to flow-accelerated corrosion and provide full and complete documentation of the program. (author)