Integrated effect of thermal ageing and low flux irradiation on microstructural evolution of the ferrite of welded austenitic stainless steels

With the purpose to quantify microstructural changes with respect to ageing degradation, the microstructure of aged type 308 stainless steel welds with a ferrite content of 5-7% has been analysed using atom probe tomography. The weld metal of the core barrel of a decommissioned light water reactor, irradiated during operation of the reactor to 0.1 dpa, 1 dpa and 2 dpa at 280-285\ub0C (231,000 h), are compared to two similar thermally aged welds. In the ferrite of the irradiated welds, there is spinodal decomposition into Cr-rich α’ and Fe-rich α, with a similar degree of decomposition for all investigated doses, amplitudes of 21-26% and wavelengths between 6 and 9 nm. The ferrite of the thermally aged material showed evidence of decomposition when aged at 325\ub0C (an amplitude of 13-14% and wavelength of 5 nm), but not when aged at 291\ub0C, thus the irradiation significantly increases the rate of spinodal decomposition. There is G-phase (Ni Si Mn ) precipitation in the ferrite of all the weld metals except the one that was thermally aged at the lowest temperature. After irradiation to 1 and 2 dpa, the G-phase is considerably more well developed than after 0.1 dpa or thermal ageing

Decreased admissions and hospital costs with a neutral effect on mortality following lowering of the troponin T cutoff point to the 99th percentile

Background: The implementation of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) assays and a cutoff based on the 99th cTnT percentile in the evaluation of patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome has not been uniform due to uncertain effects on health benefits and utilization of limited resources. Methods: Clinical and laboratory data from patients with chest pain or dyspnea at the emergency de¬partment (ED) were evaluated before (n = 20516) and after (n = 18485) the lowering of the hs-cTnT cutoff point from 40 ng/L to the 99th hs-cTnT percentile of 14 ng/L in February 2012. Myocardial infarction (MI) was diagnosed at the discretion of the attending clinicians responsible for the patient. Results: Following lowering of the hs-cTnT cutoff point fewer ED patients with chest pain or dyspnea as the principal complaint were analyzed with an hs-cTnT sample (81% vs. 72%, p < 0.001). Overall 30-day mortality was unaffected but increased among patients not analyzed with an hs-cTnT sample (5.3% vs. 7.6%, p < 0.001). The MI frequency was unchanged (4.0% vs. 3.9%, p = 0.72) whereas admission rates decreased (51% vs. 45%, p < 0.001) as well as hospital costs. Coronary angiographies were used more frequently (2.8% vs. 3.3%, p = 0.004) but with no corresponding change in coronary interventions. Conclusions: At the participating hospital, lowering of the hs-cTnT cutoff point to the 99th percentile decreased admissions and hospital costs but did not result in any apparent prognostic or treatment benefits for the patients

Microstructural evolution of welded stainless steels on integrated effect of thermal aging and low flux irradiation

The combined effect of thermal aging and irradiation on cast and welded stainless steel solidification structures is not sufficiently investigated. From theory and consecutive aging and irradiation experiments, the effect of simultaneous low rate irradiation and thermal aging is expected to accelerate and modify the aging processes of the ferrite phase. Here, a detailed analysis of long-term aged material at very low fast neutron flux at LWR operating temperatures using Atom Probe Tomography is presented. Samples of weld material from various positions in the core barrel of the Zorita PWR are examined. The welds have been exposed to 280–285 \ub0C for 38 years at three different neutron fluxes between 1 7 10 −5 and 7 7 10 −7 dpa/h to a total dose of 0.15–2 dpa. The aging of the ferrite phase occurs by spinodal decomposition, clustering and precipitation of e.g. G-phase. These phenomena are characterized and quantitatively analyzed in order to understand the effect of flux in combination with thermal aging

Cardiac troponin T concentrations and patient-specific risk of myocardial infarction using the novel PALfx parameter

Myocardial infarction (MI) is more likely if the heart damage biomarker cardiac troponin T (cTnT) is elevated in a blood sample from a patient with chest pain. There is no conventional method to estimate the risk of MI at a specific cTnT concentration. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of a novel method that converts cTnT concentrations to patient-specific risks of MI. Methods: Admission cTnT measurements in 15,425 ED patients from three hospitals with a primary complaint of chest pain, with or without a clinical diagnosis of MI, were Box-Cox-transformed to normality density functions to calculate the percentage with MI among patients with a given cTnT concentration, the parametric predictive value among lookalikes (PALfx). The ability of the PALfx to generate stable risk estimates of MI was examined by bootstrapping and expressed as the coefficient of variation (CV). Results: Four age and sex-specific subgroups above or below 60 years of age with distinct cTnT distributions were identified among patients without MI. The cTnT distributions across subgroups with MI were similar, allowing us to use all admissions with MI to calculate the PALfx in the four subgroups. For instance, at a baseline cTnT concentration of 7 ng/L, a\ua0female patient &lt; 60 years would have a 0.5% risk of MI whereas a male patient &gt; 60 years would have a 1.9% risk of MI. To assess the stability of the PALfx method we bootstrapped smaller and smaller subsets of the 15,422 ED visits. We found that 1950 patients without MI and 50 patients with MI were sufficient to limit the variation of the PALfx with a CV of 0.8–5.4%, close to the CV using the entire dataset. The MI risk estimates were similar when data from the three hospitals were used separately to derive the PALfx equations. Conclusions: The PALfx can be used to estimate the risk of MI at patient-specific cTnT concentrations with acceptable margins of error. The patient-specific risk of disease using the PALfx could complement decision limits

Microstructures of oxide films formed in alloy 182 BWR core shroud support leg cracks

This paper contributes to a TEM examination on the oxide films formed at three locations along a crack path in Alloy 182 weld from a BWR core shroud support leg, namely, the crack mouth, the midway between the mouth and the crack tip, and the crack tip. In the crack mouth the oxide film was approximately 1.6 μm in thickness and consisted of relatively pure NiO. The midway oxide film was mainly a nickel chromium oxide with a film thickness of 0.3 μm. At the crack tip the oxide film was a nickel chromium iron oxide with a film thickness of 30 nm. In all studied locations the main oxides had the similar rocksalt structure and the cracks were much wider than the thicknesses of the oxide films. It probably suggests that the corroded metal was largely dissolved into the coolant. The different dissolution rates of nickel, chromium and iron cations in the oxide films are clearly displayed with the compositions of the residual oxides. The oxide stability under different redox potentials along the crack path is briefly discussed