Abstract：The corrosion of uranium in water vapor is a key issue in nuclear industry, and it has been paid much attention for long time. Uranium can react with water vapor to form hydrogen, which has a great security threat. Meanwhile, hydrogen can react with uranium, leading to serious hydrogenation corrosion. The understanding of corrosion mechanism and kinetics of uranium in water vapor is helpful to evaluate the corrosion state of uranium more accurately and guide the safe storage of uranium fuel. Therefore, this paper analyzed the reaction characteristics between uranium and water, summarized the research methods for uranium corrosion process, and discussed the reaction processes occurring in the two different kinetic stages including the parabolic and the linear stages. Moreover, the physical and chemical characteristics of uranium corrosion products in water vapor were summarized. The formation conditions and detection methods of uranium hydride (UH3) were emphatically discussed. Several mechanism models for uranium corrosion in water vapor were summarized systematically, and the similarities and differences of models were also compared. Finally, the factors affecting the corrosion process of uranium in water vapor, such as oxygen, pretreatment process of uranium sample, and impurity content, were discussed in detail.
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