Assessment of segregation kinetics in water-moderated reactors pressure vessel steels under long-term operation

In reactor pressure vessel (RPV) bcc-lattice steels temper embrittlement is developed under the influence of both operating temperature of ∼300 °C and neutron irradiation. Segregation processes in the grain boundaries (GB) begin to play a special role in the assessment of the safe operation of the RPV in case of its lifetime extension up to 60 years or more. The most reliable information on the RPV material condition can be obtained by investigating the surveillance specimens (SS) that are exposed to operational factors simultaneously with the RPV itself. In this paper the GB composition in the specimens with different thermal exposure time at the RPV operating temperature as well as irradiated by fast neutrons (E ≥ 0.5 MeV) to different fluences (20–71)·10²² m⁻² was studied by means of Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) including both impurity and main alloying elements content. The data obtained allowed to trace the trend of the operating temperature and radiation-stimulated diffusion influence on the overall segregants level in GB. The revealed differences in the concentration levels of GB segregants in different steels, are due to the different chemical composition of the steels and also due to different grain boundary segregation levels in initial (unexposed) state. The data were used to estimate the RPV steels working capacity for 60 years. The estimation was carried out using both the well-known Langmuir-McLean model and the one specially developed for RPV steels, which takes into account the structure and phase composition of VVER-1000 RPV steels, as well as the long-term influence of operational factors.