Critical Reflections about Doel3 & Tihange2

Integrity reactor vessels Doel 3 and Tihange 2

Page: 12

4 Hydrogen as cause of metal cracking.

In this section, it will be demonstrated that the hypothesis of Electrabel that hydrogen segregation which occurred during the vessel production as the only cause of metal cracking cannot be correct. To demonstrate this, the amount of available hydrogen for cracking has to be estimated, then, the amount of hydrogen necessary to cause all the cracks has to be estimated. If the amount of hydrogen available for cracking is smaller than the amount of hydrogen necessary to cause all the cracks, the hypothesis that hydrogen flaking during the manufacturing process of the shell as the only cause cannot be correct.

Figure 10: Solubility of hydrogen in steel in terms of temperature and pressure [ 11 ]

The ingots of which the reactor shells have been manufactured were poured using a state-of-the-art vacuum technique, to remove the hydrogen from the molten steel. Before casting the ingot from which the lower core shell of the Doel3 reactor has been manufactured, the molten steel has been

R.Boonen & J.Peirs

May 18, 2017