Sustainability of Life Cycle Management for Nuclear Cementation-Based Technologies - Chapter 6: Sustainability of cementitious structures, systems, and components (SSC’s): Long-term environmental stressors

In nuclear industry, the service life of the cementitious structures, systems, and components (SSC’s) in nuclear power plant and spent fuel storage facilities extends over several decades and in radioactive waste disposal in the range of several hundreds of years. The operational experience in these facilities proved the sustainability of these SSC’s. During normal operation, cementitious SSC’s are exposed to environmental stressors that initiate degradation processes that might affect their performances. The long-term experience in using cementitious materials provides a clear understanding for these processes and allows the prediction of the extent of the degradation damage. In this chapter, relevant environmental stressors and the degradation processes will be presented with special focus on the degradation mechanisms and the factors that affect them in Portland cement and the models that could be used to predict the degradation behavior. Durability of calcium aluminate, calcium sulfoaluminate, and magnesium phosphate cements will be highlighted. Finally, codes and standards that could be used for durability design will be overviewed.