Susceptibility of Alloy 22 to Environmentally Assisted Cracking in Yucca Mountain Relevant Environments

In its current design, the high level nuclear waste containers will include an external layer of Alloy 22 (Ni-22Cr-13Mo-3W-3Fe). Since over their life-time the containers may be exposed to multi-ionic aqueous environments, a potential degradation mode of the outer layer could be environmental assisted cracking (EAC). The objective of the current research work was to quantify the susceptibility of Alloy 22 to EAC in a several environmental conditions including solution composition, temperature and electrochemical potential. The susceptibility to EAC was evaluated using the constant deformation technique, the compact specimen--low cycle fatigue method and the slow strain rate test (SSRT). The alloy was tested in the wrought mill annealed (MA) and in the as-welded conditions. Results show that Alloy 22 was extremely resistant to EAC in a wide range of environmental conditions. Using SSRT, Alloy 22 was found susceptible to EAC in one electrolyte at one temperature and at one electrochemical potential.