Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The Industrial Research Chair in Nuclear Engineering at the University of New Brunswick ran for 15 years until 2008, having been renewed twice. During that time it built a solid national and international reputation for innovative research into the chemistry and corrosion of cooling systems in power plants. The current award of a collaborative research and development grant is for an extension of those activities, but with a modified focus. Thus, the Canadian nuclear industry through the CANDU Owners Group, which along with NSERC sponsors the research, has moved the funding vehicle from a committee that is integrated primarily in the corrosion of piping in the CANDU primary coolant system to their more general R&D area. The research pursued will seek to improve our understanding of the way materials that make up the cooling systems of power plants - mostly, but not exclusively, nuclear - corrode and how the resulting corrosion product oxides are transported around the circuits. Methods to mitigate the corrosion and the subsequent problems of fouling and loss of efficiency of heat transfer surfaces, build-up of radioactivity on out-reactor components, etc., are likely outcomes.