Matthew J. Perricone

PAPER 8I
Matthew J. Perricone
Consulting Scientist
RJ Lee Group Inc
350 Hochberg Road
Monroeville, PA 15146
USA
T: 724-325-1776
E: mperricone@rjlg.com
Accelerated Alloy
Development: Nuclear
Power Generation
Technology Depends on
the Reliability of High
Performance Alloys
to Operate in Severe
Service Environments
Presentation only.
Available on enclosed CD.
Biography
Dr. Matthew J. Perricone is a Consulting
Scientist at RJ Lee Group, a materials
characterization firm that specializes in
industrial forensics. His particular areas of
technical interest are in corrosion, welding
metallurgy, and alloy development. Along with
root cause failure analyses in various industrial
sectors, Dr. Perricone has conducted studies
of corrosion impact on a variety of materials
including impact of World Trade Center dust
on building components and the corrosive
effects of chlorine from a chemical spill to
industrial & residential properties. He has
also directed research in the general areas of
physical metallurgy, welding and joining, and
solidification, which included alloy development
of a filler metal for superaustenitic stainless
steel for naval service. While at RJ Lee
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Group, he has worked for clients in industry
including power generation, transportation,
steel-making, medical devices and consumer
products. He has been accepted as an Expert
in Materials Science and Corrosion in U.S.
Federal Court. Dr. Perricone’s previous position
as a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at
Sandia National Laboratories in the Joining
and Coatings Department included research
on the microstructural development of laser
welded stainless steels. While at Sandia, he
was awarded an Employee Recognition Award
for his work as Team Leader of a group that
modeled the fluid dynamics of laser weld
fusion zones to minimize weld porosity. Dr.
Perricone received his BS, MS and PhD in
Materials Science and Engineering from
Lehigh University and has published in multiple
peer-reviewed journals including chapters
in the ASM Handbook and the AWS Welding
Handbook. He is currently the Chair of the
Chapter Council of ASM International and a
member of both the American Welding Society
and NACE International.
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PAPER 8I
AcceleratedAlloyDevelopment:NuclearPowerGenerationTechnologyDependsontheReliabilityofHighPerformanceAlloystoOperateinSevereServiceEnvironments
Abstract
Nuclear power generation technology depends
on the reliability of high performance alloys
to operate in severe service environments.
Consideration of corrosion resistance,
mechanical strength, and irradiation effects
makes alloy selection a main concern.
Optimization of the desired properties
in the chosen alloy requires control of
the microstructure, which depends on
manufacturing (casting, forging, heat treating,
etc.) and fabrication (welding, etc.) processes.
This microstructural control is not a trivial task
for high alloy stainless steel and nickel base
alloys that have complex chemistries that
can encourage the formation of unintended
intermetallic phases during solidification, heat
treatment or fabrication, often in structurally
compromising microstructural locations like
grain boundaries. Furthermore, the local
redistribution of critical alloying elements
during welding can reduce the local corrosion
resistance of an alloy below that of the bulk
material. Understanding microstructural
development in an alloy system becomes
critical in designing new alloy compositions
or optimizing processes for manufacturing
or fabrication. This can be time consuming
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and costly even by highly experienced
metallurgists if done by trial and error, but
modern computer technology has enabled
more cost-effective ways to streamline this
process. Fewer samples are required for
validation than with an iterative approach,
thereby maximizing the value of targeted
experiments that are conducted.
Commercially available computational
thermodynamic
software
offers
the
metallurgist with the tools required to reduce
the time and expense of developing new
alloys or optimizing existing ones. These
programs can be used to calculate alloyspecific multi-component phase diagrams
from databases of thermodynamic data from
the refereed technical literature that consider
all of the alloying elements that are present
in the nominal composition. No longer is it
necessary to start with the binary Fe-C phase
diagram for steel and extrapolate to “real”
alloys with seven or more elements in their
composition. Knowledge of thermodynamic
stability of phases at a given composition and
temperature makes prediction and control of
the microstructural development of an alloy
possible. When combined with information
about a particular process (temperature
profiles, cooling rates, grain size, etc.), alloy-
specific process-property-microstructure maps
can be calculated to guide alloy selection and
process optimization. The resulting diagrams
can also provide useful support for technical
inquiries regarding regulatory compliance.
This paper presents three case studies in
which this approach is applied to real world
challenges. First, the development of a filler
metal for welding superaustenitic stainless
steels will be discussed, with a focus on
maintaining local corrosion resistance in and
around the fusion zone. Second, the selection
of welding parameters and control of fusion
zone composition is optimized to avoid cracksusceptible sigma formation in superaustenitic
stainless steels. Finally, the development of a
gadolinium-containing nickel-based alloy for
spent nuclear fuel storage will be discussed.
These case studies are presented to demonstrate
applications of this general methodology rather
than a discussion of the merits of a particular
brand or type of software. Instead, this paper is
intended to illustrate just a few of the possibilities
presented by the combination of metallurgical
expertise, computer technology, and scientific
problem solving when applied to the challenges
facing industry.
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