A Study on the Hydriding Reaction of Pre-oxidized Zr Alloys

This paper presents some experimental results on incubation time for massive hydriding of Zr alloys with oxide thickness. Oxide effects experiments on massive hydriding reaction of commercial Zr alloy claddings and pre-oxidized Zr alloys with hydrogen gas were carried out in the temperature range from 300 to $400^{\circ}C$ with thermo-gravimetric apparatus. Experimental results for oxide effects on massive hydriding kinetics show that incubation time is not proportional to oxide thickness and that the massive hydriding kinetics of pre-filmed Zr alloys follows linear kinetic law and the hydriding rate are similar to that of oxide-free Zr alloys once massive hydriding is initiated. There was a difference in micro-structures between oxide during incubation time and oxide after incubation time. Physical defects such as micro-cracks and pores were observed in only oxide after incubation time. Therefore, the massive hydriding of Zr alloys seems to be ascribed to short circuit path, mechacical or physical defects, such as micro-cracks and pores in the oxide rather than hydrogen diffusion through the oxide resulting from the increase of oxygen vacancies in the hypostoichiometric oxide.

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