A Study of Corrosion Monitoring Techniques Used in URLs for Metals

• Main Author: Li, Sirui
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholar Commons 2017
• Subjects: Temperature; Resistivity; Underground Research Laboratory; Engineering; Materials Science and Engineering
• Online Access: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6624; http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7821&context=etd

With the increasing use of fission-type nuclear power generation, particularly high-levels radioactive nuclear waste are generated, so the safe use of nuclear energy requires proper disposal of high-level radioactive nuclear waste. The selected treatment method is deep geological disposal. Therefore, underground research laboratory (URL) to prepare for deep geological disposal will also be carried out. Corrosion of metallic materials, which are closely related to the safety of URL, is the focus of this research project. This study selected monitoring techniques for URL and developed a rough monitoring scheme for temperature and resistivity in URL. In this study, corrosion-temperature and corrosion-resistivity monitoring experiments were carried out in different bentonite samples to simulate the experiments in URL. The results show that the self-compensating high-precision inductance corrosion monitoring system and multifunction soil corrosion rate measurer proved to be a good system for monitoring the corrosion-temperature and corrosion-resistivity of metals. However, the life span limitation makes them unable to meet the requirements of URL. The results also show that the corrosion rate of metal in bentonite is positively correlated with temperature. The existing electrochemical probes are suitable for monitoring the corrosion rate, but not suitable for soil corrosion rate monitoring.