The effect of stainless steel overlay cladding on corrosion fatigue crack propagation in pressure vessel steel in PWR primary coolant

The growth of sub-critical cracks in pressure boundary materials in light water reactors is assessed using codified procedures, but the presence of the overlay-welded stainless steel cladding on the pressure vessel is not normally taken into consideration because of the difficulty in demonstrating clad integrity for the lifetime of the plant. In order to investigate any possible effect of the cladding layer on crack propagation, tests have been performed using two types of specimen. The first was sputter ion plated with a thin layer of austenitic stainless steel to simulate the electrochemical and oxide effects due to the cladding, whilst the second used an overlay clad specimen to investigate the behavior of a crack propagating from the austenitic into the ferritic material. Testing was carried out under cyclic loading conditions in well controlled simulated PWR primary water. At 288 C, the presence of stainless steel in contact with the low alloy steel did not enhance crack propagation in PWR primary coolant compared to unclad or unplated specimens. There was limited evidence that at 288 C under certain loading conditions, in both air and PWR water, there may be an effect of the cladding which reduces crack growth rates, at leastmore » for a short distance of crack propagation into the low alloy steel. Crack growth rates in the ferritic steel at 130 C were higher for both the plated and clad specimens than found in previous tests under similar conditions on the unclad material. However, the crack growth rates were bounded by current ASME 11 Appendix A recommendations for defects exposed to water and at low R ratio. There was no evidence of environmental enhancement of crack propagation in the stainless steel in clad specimens. The results indicate that the current approach of ignoring the cladding for assessment purposes is conservative at plant operating temperature.« less