Experimental study of self-welding of materials in high temperature liquid sodium

To study self-welding of materials in high temperature liquid sodium, an experimental set-up consisting of a sodium-circulating loop, a test vessel, a loading mechanism for material specimens and instrumentation were designed, installed and operated at IGCAR, Kalpakkam. Combinations of austenitic stainless steel, hard chrome plating and Stellite-6 with the surface finish of the contact surfaces typical of that of components in fast breeder reactors were exposed to liquid sodium at 530 °C under load intensities of 10 and 40 MPa for 500 and 1000 h. The paper discusses the experimental set-up installed and the results of self-welding of these material combinations. The role of surface finish on self-welding tendency is also briefly discussed. © 1993.