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AUSTENITIC STAINLESS STEEL (316)

The structural material for the first wall and blanket of a fusion device must be of excellent integrity with well known and established properties since it will be subjected to radiation damage levels ~10-7 dpa/s, will be expected to operate at temperatures in the range of 100-600 C and for pulsed machines will be subject to damage caused by thermal fatigue as a result of the cyclic strains produced by the temperature changes during intermittent burning of the plasma. Austenitic steel of the 316 type has been selected as a potential structural material for near term fusion experimental devices. Austenitic stainless steel has been studied in many nuclear environments, therefore a substantial amount of data is available. Compatibility The compatibility of stainless steel with coolant materials has been judged almost exclusively in terms of the "wastage" or thinning of the material. On this basis a corrosion rate of approximately 25 um/year (~1 mpy) is actually taken as the acceptable upper bound for blanket or coolant compatibility. Compatibility with liquid lithium is under question principally because the available corrosion data for lithium are limited. The compatibility of sodium with austenitic stainless steels is more feasible than that of lithium. Helium as an inert coolant provides no compatibility problems. GENERAL PROPERTIES - 316 SS [1] Chemical composition of 316ss stainless steel (wt %)
C 0.055 Si 0.75 Mn 1.5 P 0.02 S 0.004 Cr 16.4 Ni 13.9 Mo 2.3 Ti 0.08 N 0.0084 Al 0.021 Co 0.013 Nb 0.06

Physical Properties Density : 7.96 g/cm3 Melting Point : 1370 - 1400 C Electrical Properties Electrical Resistivity : 70 - 78 u [[Omega]] cm Thermal Properties Coefficient of Expansion @ 20 - 100 C : 16 - 18x10-6 m/m-K Thermal Conductivity @ RTP : 16.3 W/m-K Mechanical Properties Brinell Hardness : 160 - 190 Elongation : < 60 % Izod Impact : 20 - 136 J m-1 >Modulus of Elasticity : 190 - 120 GPa Tensile Strength : 460 - 860 MPa DATA AND CORRELATIONS The thermal and structural properties as a function of temperature are presented in Table 1, refs [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Polynomial correlations of the thermal and structural properties as functions of temperature, using the data of Table 1, are as follows: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) with T in kelvin and Eqs 1-5 valid in the temperature range of 300-1000 K. Figures 1-4 show the variation of properties with temperature. The data of stress to rupture with respect to time (hours) and temperature (K) are grouped into a master curve using

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the Larson-Miller parameter P defined as follows: (6) with T the temperature in K, c=20 a constant and t the time in hours. Figure 4 shows the master curve of the Larson-Miller Parameter for Type 316 SS for the temperature range 700 K-1100 K and time range of 1-3x105 hr [4]. Figure 5 shows the values restricted to P>=17,825. A line of best fit is as follows: (7)
T K TABLE 1 Thermal and structural properties of 316 SS [[rho]] E GPa [[nu]] k W/m-K c kJ/kg-K [[sigma]] kg/m3 y MPa 8238.0 194.18 188.49 182.02 174.29 166.17 157.96 148.63 136.50 0.270 13.40 15.20 16.75 18.30 19.80 21.30 22.75 24.20 468.0 504.0 527.0 550.0 563.0 576.0 589.0 602.0 206.85 167.49 143.38 128.64 121.36 117.62 112.52 102.99 [[alpha]] (10-6) m/m-K 15.156 16.051 16.933 17.511 17.946 18.297 18.592 18.847

300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

k (W/m-K)

c (J/kg-k)

Temperature (K)

Figure 1 : Thermal conductivity and specific heat of type 316 SS.

E (GPa)

[[alpha]] (10-6 m/m-K)

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Temperature (K) Figure 2 : Elastic modulus and coefficient of thermal expansion of type 316 SS. [[sigma]]y (MPa)

Temperature (K) Figure 3 : Yield stress of type 316 stainless steel.

Stress-to-Rupture (MPa)

Larson Miller Parameter (P) Figure 4 : Stress-to-rupture variation with the Larson-Miller parameter of type 316 stainless steel.

Stress-to-Rupture (MPa)

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Larson Miller Parameter (P)

Figure 5 : Larson-Miller parameter versus stress to rupture.

References
1. Goodfellow. Metals, Alloys, Compounds, Ceramics, Polymers, Composites. Catalogue 1993/94. 2. F. Incropera and D. DeWitt, Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, 2nd edition, John Wiley (1985). 3. ITER Documentation Series, No 29, IAEA, Vienna 1991. "Blanket, Shield Design and Material Data Base. 4. ASME Code Cases : Nuclear Components. Case N-47-30, Section III, Division 1. 1992 ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. 5. Fusion Engineering and Design. FEDEEE 5 (2), 141 - 234 (1987). 6. Detail of the ITER Outline Design Report. The ITER Machine, Vol 2, San Diego, 10- 12 January 1994.

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