Effects of flow, Si inhibition, and concurrent corrosion of dissimilar metals on the corrosion of aluminium in the environment following a loss-of-coolant accident

Abstract Experiments were conducted to investigate the aluminium corrosion in the simulated containment pool environment following a loss-of-coolant accident at a nuclear power plant. The results show an identical power law correlation between the corrosion rate and mass transfer coefficient for different flow systems. Aluminium corrosion is inhibited by the silicon leached from the insulation materials, and the inhibition efficiency increases with the silicon concentration due to the increase of Al 2 SiO 5 or SiO 2 content in the passivation layer. The concurrent corrosion of copper and iron has little influence on aluminium corrosion while the presence of zinc significantly retards the aluminium corrosion.