Experimental investigation on corrosion of structural steels in molten Pb-Mg and LBE

Lead and its alloys are commonly used as coolant and liquid spallation neutron targets for advanced nuclear reactors and ADS systems. Pb-Mg alloy may be a potential coolant and maintain an acceptable corrosion rate without additional oxygen control in comparison with LBE. A comparative study on corrosion behavior of two F/M steels (SIMP, T91) and two austenitic steels (316L, 15-15Ti) in liquid Pb-Mg and LBE at 550 °C for 1000 h has been studied in this work. In Pb-Mg, F/M steels show slight dissolution corrosion and austenitic steels show severe dissolution corrosion. In LBE, all steels form oxide layers and a three-layer structure is observed in F/M steels.