Studies of General Corrosion, Stress-Corrosion Cracking and Corrosion-Product Transport in a Supercritical-Water Flow System

在当今社会，核能是一种有吸引力的能源，人们越来越关注环境排放和温室气体的控制，对碳排放征税的预期正在成为现实。让我们的核电站变得更有效率和多功能以帮助缓解这些环境问题的可能性得到了极大的关注，这也是第四代国际论坛(GIF)的重点，这是一个由包括加拿大在内的13个国家签署的国际条约，旨在调查未来的核反应堆设计。GIF感兴趣的反应堆技术之一是超临界水反应堆(SCWR)。该反应堆将使用超临界水(温度和压力分别高于临界点371摄氏度和22.1兆帕的水)从反应堆堆芯中带走热量，这是当前反应堆设计的合乎逻辑的演变。加拿大对这一设计特别感兴趣，因为CANDU反应堆的压力管结构非常适合在超临界条件下运行。使用超临界水冷却反应堆有许多好处，包括不会出现相分离(沸腾不会在临界点以上发生)，以及由于采用了高得多的温度(高达625摄氏度)而提高了动力循环的热力学效率。对于与当前反应堆相同的净功率输出，SCWR的更高效率将导致更小的反应堆，建造成本更低，消耗更少的燃料，从而减少使用过的燃料的产量。

Nuclear power is an attractive energy source in today's society where concern for control of environmental emissions and greenhouse gases is increasing and the expected taxes to be levied on carbon emissions are becoming a reality. The possibility of making our nuclear power plants more efficient and multipurpose to help alleviate these environmental concerns has been gaining much attention and is the focus of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF), an international treaty signed by 13 countries, including Canada, to investigate future nuclear reactor designs. One of the reactor technologies of interest to the GIF is the supercritical water reactor (SCWR). This reactor would use supercritical water (water whose temperature and pressure are above its critical point, 371 degC and 22.1 MPa respectively) to remove the heat from the reactor core and is a logical evolution of current reactor designs. Canada is particularly interested in this design since the pressure-tube configuration of the CANDU reactor is well suited for operation in supercritical conditions. The use of supercritical water to cool the reactor has many benefits including no phase separation (boiling will not occur above the critical point) and higher thermodynamic efficiency of the power cycle due to the much higher temperatures employed (up to 625 degC). For the same net power output as current reactors, the higher efficiencies in a SCWR would result in a smaller reactor that is less costly to build and consumes less fuel thereby reducing used fuel production.