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A case study of a pipe line burst in the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant
Author(s) -
Matsumura M.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
materials and corrosion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.487
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1521-4176
pISSN - 0947-5117
DOI - 10.1002/maco.200503971
Subject(s) - nuclear power plant , erosion corrosion , corrosion , nuclear power , differential pressure , carbon steel , power station , flow (mathematics) , nuclear engineering , forensic engineering , materials science , environmental science , engineering , metallurgy , mechanics , physics , nuclear physics , electrical engineering
On August ninth, 2004, at the Mihama nuclear power plant in Japan, a carbon steel pipe line carrying hot water under high pressure burst, killing five workers employed in maintenance job nearby. The major cause for the burst was presumed to be the pipe wall thinning due to so‐called erosion‐corrosion which had been revealed to be the cause of similar accident in 1986 at the Surry nuclear power plant in USA. However, the opinion of this author is that the wall thinning must have been caused through differential flow velocity corrosion accompanied with passivation, the origin of which was irregularities in the fluid flow velocity as well as in the pipe wall temperature. A rationale is presented that is consistent with this hypothesis. A countermeasure to this type of corrosion is also proposed.