Failure analysis on abnormal wall thinning of heat-transfer titanium tubes of condensers in nuclear power plant Part I: Corrosion and wear

•The poorly processed wall of the internal borings led to concentrated eccentric wear.•Iron oxides sagging into the internal borings resulted in three-body contact wear.•Foreign particles in the borings from the outside caused three-body abrasive wear.

Titanium tubes used in condensers in a nuclear power plant in China encountered abnormal wall thinning, and was thus forced to temporarily stop operation or it could bring about catastrophic safety problems. Most of the wall thinning happened at quite regular positions on the tubes and these failure tubes were located similarly in the condensers, indicating some common problems. To find out the root cause and mechanism of the thinning failure, we conducted surface deposit analysis, appearance inspection, microstructure analysis and composition analysis of the samples by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), stereo microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS). The results revealed that the wall thinning was primarily caused by eccentric contact wear and three-body contact wear rooted in processing defect of internal borings, corrosion products deposit and sagging, and foreign particles. Finally, countermeasures were proposed for repair and prevention.