Degradation and Failure Characteristics of NPP Containment Protective Coating Systems

A research program to investigate the performance and potential for debris formation of Service Level I coating systems used in nuclear power plant containment is being performed at the Savannah River Technology Center. The research activities are aligned to address phenomena important to cause coating disbondment as identified by the Industry Coatings Expert Panel. The period of interest for performance covers the time from application of the coating through 40 years of service, followed by a medium-to-large break loss-of-coolant accident scenario, which is a design basis accident (DBA) scenario. The interactive program elements are described in this report and the application of these elements to evaluate the performance of the specific coating system of Phenoline 305 epoxy-phenolic topcoat over Carbozinc 11 primer on a steel substrate. This system is one of the predominant coating systems present on steel substrates in NPP containment