Corrosion Resistance in Various Environments

The methods to study corrosion of uranium alloys have primarily been through the thermodynamics and kinetics of corrosion science as covered in Section 6.0. There has been some limited corrosion testing on uranium, such as in seawater environments.

Atmospheric Environments

Corrosion of uranium and uranium alloys will react in humid air environments by the reaction:

Water Environments

A similar dependence of alloying effect on the corrosion of uranium in water environments takes place. Measurements of the uniform corrosion rates of some uranium alloys and unalloyed uranium in seawater at 20ºC is shown in Figure 40.