The Experimental Investigation of Wetting Property for Liquid Lead Bismuth Alloy With ADS Materials

The accelerator-driven subcritical system (ADS) has potential economy and safety and relatively mature technology base, which has been chosen as a priority development advanced nuclear system. Liquid lead bismuth eutectic (LBE) is selected as the spallation target material and core coolant. The reduced activation ferritic/martensitic (RAFM) steel and the silicon carbide composite (SiC
${_{f}}$
) are selected as its structural material and functional material, respectively. In the present experimental investigation, the special vacuum experimental device has been built, and the “dispensed droplet” modification of the classic sessile droplet technique has been used to investigate the wetting property and interfacial interactions for LBE/RAFM steel, LBE/316L, LBE/SiC, and LBE/SiC
_f
couples. The contact angles were measured between the liquid LBE and the various candidate materials under working temperature from 300 °C to 480 °C. The results could provide meaningful compatibility database of liquid LBE and valuable engineering design reference of candidate structural materials and functional material for future ADS.