Behaviour of Structural Materials: Italy

Lead and lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) are foreseen as spallation target and coolant in ADS system, due to their favourable physical, chemical, thermodynamic and neutron properties. However, besides the above mentioned advantages, they present high corrosion potential with respect to the most of the considered structural materials. Therefore, the compatibility of the structural materials with the coolant is an issue of major concern, as well as the role played by the neutron irradiation. To establish the system feasibility, then, among all the other R&D needs, it is of fundamental importance to carry out suitable experimental campaigns in order to acquire a complete knowledge of the structural materials behaviour in Pb-LBE environment, also in presence of fast spectrum neutron irradiation. Particular attention has to be paid to austenitic and ferritic martensitic steels