Flow rate dependent corrosion behavior of Eurofer steel in Pb–15.7Li

In future blanket concepts Eurofer, is foreseen as structural material which is in direct contact with flowing Pb–15.7Li at temperatures up to 550 °C. In earlier compatibility tests the corrosion behavior was studied at high flow velocities of ca. 22 cm/s in PICOLO loop and a large data base for RAFM steels was created. Dramatically high steel dissolution occurs near 400 μm/year. Meanwhile, development of modeling tools was integrated to describe the corrosion/precipitation processes and to extrapolate towards DEMO conditions. However, to perform reliable extrapolation, testing at smaller flow rates towards laminar flow is absolutely necessary. Samples exposed up to 3000 h at reduced 10 cm/s flow velocity showed a dissolution attack of about 300 μm/year. The simulation of the corrosion behavior at 10 cm/s by MATLIM code and the evaluated corrosion data are consistent and fit to our results obtained earlier at 480 and 550 °C at 22 cm/s campaigns.