Status of the International Cooperative Program for Inspection of Nickel Alloy Components - PINC

Primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) has occurred world-wide in nuclear power plants and is seen as a serious issue. Crack samples show very tight and very complex cracks in the nickel-base weld metal and forgings that are difficult to detect, size, and characterize. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is conducting a research program on non-destructive evaluation (NDE) reliability in detecting and characterizing PWSCC. This program is part of an international cooperative research project called the Program for the Inspection of Nickel-Alloy Components (PINC), led by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has been set up to leverage efforts in several countries to address this significant and common problem. This work has the general goal of developing an understanding of the morphology of PWSCC and assessing the NDE responses from it.