Susceptibility of Welded and Non-Welded Titanium Alloys to Environmentally Assisted Cracking in Simulated Concentrated Ground Waters

The engineering barriers for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain include a double walled container and a detached drip shield. The material selected to construct the drip shield will be Titanium Grade 7 (Ti Gr 7 or R52400). Ti Gr 7 is highly resistant to corrosion and consequently it is widely used to handle aggressive industrial environments. The model for the degradation of the engineering barriers includes three modes of corrosion, namely general corrosion, localized corrosion and environmentally assisted cracking (EAC). The objective of the current research was to characterize the susceptibility of three titanium alloys to EAC in several environmental conditions with varying solution composition, pH and temperature. The susceptibility to EAC was evaluated using constant deformation (deflection) U-bend specimens in both the non-welded and welded conditions. Results show that after more than five years exposure in the vapor and liquid phases of alkaline (pH {approx} 10) and acidic (pH {approx} 3) multi-ionic environments at 60 C and 90 C, most of the specimens were free from EAC. The only specimens that suffered EAC were welded Ti Gr 12 (R53400) exposed to liquid simulated concentrated water (SCW) at 90 C.