Degradation of aged plants by corrosion: “Long cell action” in unresolved corrosion issues

In a series of previously published papers the author has identified that ‘long cell action’ corrosion plays a pivotal role in practically all unresolved corrosion issues for all types of nuclear power plants (e.g. PWR/VVER, BWR/RBMK and CANDU). Some of these unresolved issues are IGSCC, PWSCC, AOA and FAC (erosion–corrosion).In conventional corrosion science it is well established that ‘long cell action’ can seriously accelerate or suppress the local cell corrosion activities. Although long cell action is another fundamental mechanism of corrosion, especially in a ‘soil corrosion’ arena, potential involvement of this corrosion process has never been studied in nuclear and fossil power plants as far as the author has been able to establish. The author believes that the omission of this basic corrosion mechanism is the root cause of practically all un-resolved corrosion issues.In this paper, the author further elaborated on his assessment to other key corrosion issues, e.g. steam generator and turbine corrosion issues, while briefly summarizing previous discussions for completeness purposes, as well as introducing additional experimental and theoretical evidence of this basic corrosion mechanism. Due to the importance of this potential mechanism the author is calling for institutional review activities and further verification experiments in the form of a joint international project.