A Numerical Study on Flow-Accelerated Corrosion in Two Adjacent Elbows

Flow-Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) is a well-known degradation mechanism that attacks the secondary pipingin nuclear power plants. Since the Surry Unit 2 event in 1986, most nuclear power plants have implementedmanagement programs to deal with damages in carbon and low-alloy steel piping. Despite the utmost efforts,damage induced by FAC still occurs in power plants around the world. In order to predict FAC wear,some computer programs were developed such as CHECWORKS, CICERO, and COMSY. Various dataneed to be input to these programs; the chemical composition of secondary piping, flow operating conditionsand piping geometries. CHECWORKS, developed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), usesa geometry code to calculate geometry effects. Such a relatively simple geometry code is limited in acquiringthe accuracy of FAC prediction. Recently, EPRI revisited the geometry code with the intention of updatingit. In this study, numerical simulations were performed for two adjacent 90° elbows and the results wereanalysed in terms of the proximity effect between the two adjacent elbows. KCI Citation Count: 0