STUDYING PROCESSES OF ZrBe₂ CORROSION IN HEAVY WATER VAPOR

This paper presents the results of an experiment to study the processes of ZrBe₂ beryllyde corrosion when purging a sample with a stationary flow of Ar+D₂O vapor-gas medium under thermal loads. ZrBe₂ beryllide is considered as one of the promising materials for the use in various industries, science and technology, including thermonuclear energy. The interest in studying the processes of beryllides corrosion under conditions of purging with inert gases, with impurities of the water vapor of different isotopic compositions (H₂O and D₂O) is due to the need to understand the processes arising from such interaction.

The corrosion experiment with the ZrBe₂ sample was carried out on a TGA/DSC 3+ synchronous thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry device manufactured by Mettler-Toledo (Switzerland), complete with a Pfeiffer ThermoStar quadrupole mass spectrometer, in the temperature range from 100 °C to 1200 °C. Crushed, industrially manufactured zirconium beryllide produced by Ulba Metallurgical Plant, JSC (Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan) was chosen as the object of study.

As a result of the analysis of the experimental data, a mechanism for the interaction of the heavy water vapor with zirconium beryllide has been proposed and an equation has been obtained for determining the ZrBe₂ corrosion rate constant during the interaction with heavy water vapor during purging with a vapor-gas mixture (Ar+D₂O):

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