THE ANNALS OF UNIVERSITY DUNREA DE JOS OF GALAI

FASCICLE VIII, 2004, ISSN 1221-4590

TRIBOLOGY

WEAR PROBLEMS IN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT,

ENVIRONMENT EFFECT.
Damien KACZOROWSKI, Jean Philippe VERNOT
FRAMATOME-ANP Technical Centre, Avenue B Marcet, Porte Magenta, 71200 Le Creusot France
damien.kaczorowski@framatome-anp.com

ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to show that in the nuclear industry, such as in many
cases, wear is a combination of mechanical, material and environmental parameters.
The influence of water chemistry is well illustrated. The particular wear
characteristics observed in a nuclear plant on worn components were reproduced
with a specific tribometer developed by FRAMATOME-ANP.
KEYWORDS: nuclear plant, tribometer, wear, water pH, temperature.

1. INTRODUCTION
In nuclear power plants, slender tubular
components are subjected to vibrations in a
Pressurised High Temperature Water (PHTW)
environment. As a result, the two contacting surfaces,
tubes and their guides undergo impact at low contact
pressures [1]. The components are usually made of
stainless steel and it was found that the influence of
the PHTW, combined with other actions (such as
corrosion, third body effect and contact kinematics)
leads to a particular wear of the material [2, 3].
Therefore, this paper aims to show that the
environment (waters temperature and pH), play a role
in the wear rate of the surfaces.

2. TRIBOMETER AND MATERIAL

The tribometer is housed in an autoclave (fig.
1a) at a temperature of 300 5C and a pressure of 15
0.3 MPa. There is no circulation of the water and its
chemical composition could be similar to the primary
coolant pressurised water reactor ([O2]<0.1 ppm, [B]:
1300 ppm, [Li]: 2 ppm, [Cl-]: 0.05 ppm), its pH is
about 7 or could be modified (without Li) to reach a
pH about 5 .
Figure 1 presents a schematic representation of
the tribometer. The contact consists of two coaxial
cylinders. The stationary ring (height 5 mm, internal
diameter 10.7 mm), is mounted on a flexible support

of rigidity K. The mobile tube (length 11 mm,

external diameter 9.7 mm and thickness 0.95 mm) is
placed around a rod, rigidly clamped at its ends. Four
electro-magnets, create a controlled motion of the
tube, resulting in simple impacts, orbital sliding or
orbital sliding plus impact. The deflection of the
rings support, measured with pressure sensors, gives
the normal and tangential forces.
Eddy current sensors are used to obtain the
differential displacement of the tube. The entire
system (electro-magnets and dynamic data
acquisition) is computer controlled.
The conformal cylinder-cylinder contact, with a
length (L) of 3 mm, leads to low Hertzian contact
pressures (p0) of around 60 MPa, under a normal load
(FZ) of 15 N, which is classical in our tests. The total
elastic deformation () is around 25 nm which is
lower than the asperities height (around 2m) and
thus, the contact can not be uniform on all the contact
area but concerns only the asperities. The calculation
of the number of contact points obtained by
simulating the contact between a rigid plane and the
roughness of a tube was realised with a model
developed by Zahouani [4]. The real area is estimated
to be a straightforward geometrical intersection of the
plane and the rough surface. For a classical pressure
of 60 MPa, the real contact area corresponds to
around 1% of the theoretical surf ace (fig. 2.).
A statistical analysis of the contact repartition and an
associated wear model is developed in [5].

THE ANNALS OF UNIVERSITY DUNREA DE JOS OF GALAI

FASCICLE VIII, 2004, ISSN 1221-4590
TRIBOLOGY

a)
b)
Fig. 1. Main view of the FRAMATOME tribometer (a) and schematic cross section of the tribometer (b).
Both samples (tube and ring) are made of
austenitic stainless steel (18 wt % Cr, 10 wt % Ni, 2
wt % Mn and 70 wt % Fe), (AISI 304L).
Contact area

In order to study the film in detail, its surface

has been smoothed using a nano-machining
procedure, described in a previous paper [10]. In one
place, one crystal grain is shifted showing a small
smoother surface, which is indented. The indentation
curve reveals that the surface of the remaining
material is very soft. Modelling the stiffness [11]
indicates that, in this tested area (1 m2 in size), the
remaining material consisted a soft thin layer, with a
hardness value of a few hundred MPa and a thickness
of around 10 nm, covering a harder material. For this
substrate, hardness values of 5 GPa (hardness of the
stainless steel) and 20 GPa have been measured in
two different places. These results agree with the
previous description of the heterogeneous oxide layer.
Externallayer(
External
Fe3O
layer(Fe
4)4)
3O

Fig. 2. Two dimensions view of the tube topography.

The black point (contact area) corresponds to the
results of the simulation to estimate the repartition of
the contact points. The contact pressure was of 60MPa
All the tests, performed in PHTW, lead to
surface oxidation, with mechanisms different from
those at room temperature. Oxide layers, formed in
water at temperatures above 250C, are much thicker
than passive films grown at ambient temperatures [6,
7]. A cross section of an oxide layer, obtained by
exposing the tube surface to 300C water during 1400
hours, is shown in Figure 3. The oxide has a double
layer structure. The outer layer consists of octahedral
magnetite Fe3O4 crystals, the grain size is between
100 and 1500 nm. The inner layer consists of a
chromium-rich spinel formed by solid state growth
process. Its thickness ranges from 50 to 300 nm. This
oxidised tube is analysed through depth-sensing nanoindentation, performed with a Surface Force
Apparatus (SFA) with the Berkovitch diamond tip [8]
[9]. It is found that the oxide grains appear very hard
and brittle, and are cleaved during the indentation
loading. The order of magnitude of their apparent
hardness value is between 10 and 30 GPa.

Internallayer ( FeNiCr)O4
304L stainless steel

Cross section

2 m

Fig. 3. Cross section of the oxide layers formed in

PHTW. It is composed of two layers. The external
layer composed of magnetite crystals, (100 to 1500
nm thick). The internal spinel type layer is rich in
chromium (50 to 300 nm thick).

3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A semi-orbital sliding plus impact movement is
applied to the tube. The contact between the tube and
the sleeve is thus periodically disturbed. The result is
a succession of orbital sliding and impact contacts,
with a contact duration of approximately 1 ms. The
trajectory of the tube covers the half part of the total
circumference of the samples and with a go and back
movement (fig. 4). Two water chemistries were tested
at 300C, with and without Li, leading to pH ranging
from 7 to 5 (see Chapter 2 Tribometer and material).

THE ANNALS OF UNIVERSITY DUNREA DE JOS OF GALAI

FASCICLE VIII, 2004, ISSN 1221-4590
TRIBOLOGY

Fig. 4. Trajectory of the tube during the semi-orbital

motion, recorded with the eddy current sensors. The
500m radius circle corresponds to the contact limit
between the two samples.
Figure 5a shows a representative picture of the
specific wear scar obtained for both tests. It is formed
by many ellipsoidal-like indent marks (IM) with an
average length of 100 m and an average width of 20
m. The IM are regularly aligned in the direction of
the tube motion. A more or less compacted friction
film (FF), composed of agglomerated oxides and wear
particles, can be observed on the IM. The Auger depth
profiles, which reveal the presence of chromium in
the extreme surface, seem to indicate, that the FF is
mainly composed by the chromium-rich oxide. Nanoindentation tests revealed that these FF are much
harder than the stainless steel and can be considered
as an excellent abrasive [12], due to the hardness of
oxide and to the particular properties of this FF.

Optical observations of the cross section of the

specimen (fig. 5b) do not reveal apparent
deformations of the metal grains under the friction
film (FF) scar. Recent results to be published shows
that a thin work hardening phenomenon is present, but
could not be revealed by classical observation. The
shape of the IM could suggest a cap shaped
indentation, each obtained with a single impact. The
central depth is about 1 m.
The main result of these tests concerns the wear
rate evolution (fig. 6.) with the pH. A higher wear rate
is observed with pH 5. It is 5 (for the ring) to 7 (for
the tube) times higher.
Some recent results obtained with an evolution
of the present tribometer, allowing to measure some
electrochemical parameters (current, potential)
indicate that this evolution in the wear rate is not a
corrosion effect. The results have shown a lower
current measured during the depassivation of the
sample with the low pH. We can think that there is a
higher densification of the friction film which can
easily abrade the surfaces at the low pH [5].
Another test was performed in the same
conditions than above but in a 80C water. It implies
that the double layer structure of the oxide is not
observed [6, 7]. In this case, the wear of both samples
is neglictible (no matter loss). A plastic deformation
was only observed on the tube due to the roughness of
the ring. It indicates that it is necessary to work at a
high temperature (300C) and to form the double
oxide layer to observe the real wear mechanism.
These results deal well with [13]. This is due to the
particular mechanical properties of this oxide.
However, the initial oxidation of both samples (during
600 hours in PHTW) has no effect on the wear rate
and wear scares are composed of elongated indent
marks.

b)
a)
Fig. 5. SEM micrograph of worn surfaces of a tube after impact plus sliding tests (a) We can observe the
elongated indent like shape marks obtain in orbital sliding with impact conditions. They cover the entire wear scar.
(b) Cross section of the worn area. There is no apparent work hardening or plastic deformation of the grains.

10

THE ANNALS OF UNIVERSITY DUNREA DE JOS OF GALAI

FASCICLE VIII, 2004, ISSN 1221-4590
TRIBOLOGY

14

Mass variation (mg)

12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Tube pH7

Ring pH7

Tube pH5

Ring pH5

Fig. 6. Mass variation of the samples for the two pH tests.

The wear rate is 5 to 7 times higher for pH 5

4. CONCLUSIONS
In nuclear power plants, many tribological
problems occur due to periodical interaction between
components. Due to the particular atmosphere, the
study of these problems is quite complex and most
analyses involve the use of a special tribometer. The
water temperature and pH play a major role due to the
nature and the properties of the oxide layer.

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