Ferritic/martensitic steels for next-generation reactors

Concepts for the next generation of nuclear power reactors designed to meet increasing world-wide demand for energy include water-cooled, gas-cooled, and liquid-metal-cooled reactors. Reactor conditions for several designs offer challenges for engineers and designers concerning which structural and cladding materials to use. Depending on operating conditions, some of the designs favor the use of elevated-temperature ferritic/martensitic steels for in-core and out-of core applications. This class of commercial steels has been investigated in previous work on international fast reactor and fusion reactor research programs. More recently, international fusion reactor research programs have developed and tested elevated-temperature reduced-activation steels. Steels from these fission and fusion programs will provide reference materials for future fission applications. In addition, new elevated-temperature steels have been developed in recent years for conventional power systems that also need to be considered for the next generation of nuclear reactors.