The degradation of type 3013 storage containers fabricated from stainless steel is a potential problem for fifty-year storage of stabilized plutonium-bearing materials. Container materials and their welds will be exposed to stress, ionizing radiation, elevated temperatures, embrittling agents (e.g., gallium and plutonium), chloride-containing compounds, and moisture. All of these environmental conditions have been shown to be deleterious to material integrity under certain conditions. In light of these environmental conditions, the three most probable failure modes for the 3013 container are: localized corrosion (pitting), stress corrosion cracking (SCC), and liquid metal embrittlement (LME). To evaluate pitting susceptibility, stainless steel (SS) 304 and 316L and SS weldments have been exposed to various humidities and salt as a function of time. Atmospheric corrosion experiments were run in a corrosion chamber at 50C and 90% relative humidity for up to 9 weeks. Additional atmospheric corrosion experiments were run on samples in a furnace at 80C and 3% relative humidity for up to 9 weeks. Sodium chloride was placed on top of chamber samples and packed around furnace samples in a ceramic boat. At the end of an exposure period, the samples were removed from the exposure chamber and the damage due to pitting corrosion was quantified in a scanning electron microscope (i.e. number of pits, pit radii, % area). The data were then analyzed using statistical analysis of extremes to predict the pitting population during a fifty-year 3013 service lifetime.
KEYWORDS: atmospheric corrosion, long term prediction, stainless steel, generalized extreme value statistics, nuclear material storage