Summary of the 2015 annual meeting
General summary of the 2015 annual meeting of the ICG-EAC, N.P.O.The 2015 meeting of the ICG-EAC was held from May 17 to 22 in the historic university city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. It was attended by 131 technical delegates (from 14 countries), representing 61 member organizations. In addition to one plenary talk, a total of 85 technical presentations are included in the 2015 meeting minutes (60 oral presentations, 5 tutorial lectures, 14 summary/poster presentations and 6 presentation files for the minutes only).
This year for the first time, the meeting was preceded by a tutorial on “Crack initiation test methodologies for structural materials in high-temperature water environments” on the Sunday.
The technical sessions started with five papers on low-alloy steels. In addition to common studies on EAC, the effects of hydrogen on toughness and behavior of flakes in reactor pressure vessel steel were more closely addressed this year. The ten papers presented during the stainless steel sessions covered a wide range of topics. Further information here was also provided in three summary/poster presentations and in one submission for the meeting minutes only. The sessions on irradiation effects dealt primarily with IASCC of stainless steels. It consisted of nine talks plus five summary/poster presentations. This year’s weldment sessions contained seven papers (plus two summary/poster presentations and one submission for the minutes only). The papers included studies on both, austenitic stainless and Ni-based weld metals. On Wednesday the special session on “Materials degradation plant operating experience” consisted of eight very valuable talks. The objective of this session was to review material degradation of reactor components in water cooled reactors in some of the home countries of the N.P.O.’s members. In the four sessions dealing with unwelded Ni-base alloys, there were 16 papers (plus three summary/poster presentations and four submissions for the minutes only) most of which dealt with the behavior of Alloys 690 or 600. The final part of the meeting comprised five presentations (plus one summary/poster presentation) of a more general nature describing a wide range of activities related to corrosion in LWRs.
The huge efforts of the local hosts (including the generous meeting sponsors) to making the Ann Arbor meeting so enjoyable and valuable are gratefully acknowledged! The meeting concluded with an optional tour of the impressive research facilities of the University of Michigan.
Links to general summaries of later meetings: