• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.1742-1748
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• 2020

TSSD, TSSP, and TSSP2 of hydrogen for optimized-Zirlo (Zirlo™) alloy were measured by DSC in the range of 53-457 wppm. Solvus curves of the TSSs are derived and proposed in this study. The results show that the temperature gap between TSSD and TSSP solvus lines of Zirlo™ are similar to those of other zirconium alloys, but another gap between the TSSD and TSSP2 line differs significantly. In particular, the TSSP2 solvus line becomes closer to the TSSD solvus line than to TSSP unlike Zircaloy-4, so ΔT_TSSD-TSSP2 of Zirlo™ decreases with decreasing temperature. This implies that hydride reorientation can take place more significantly in Zirlo™ than in Zircaloy-4, and the limited temperature variation of 65 ℃ during the vacuum drying and the cooling-down process may not be sufficient to prevent the triggering of hydride reorientation in Zirlo™ cladding under long-term dry storage.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.249-258
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• 2010

Recently, many utilities have considered interim dry storage of spent nuclear fuel as an option for increasing spent fuel storage capacity. Foreign nuclear regulatory committees have provided some regulatory and licensing requirements for relatively low- and medium-burned spent fuel with respect to the prevention of spent fuel degradation during transportation and interim dry storage. In the present study, the effect of cladding creep and hydride distribution on spent fuel degradation is reviewed and performance tests with high-burned Zircaloy-4 and advanced Zr alloy spent fuel are proposed to investigate the effect of burnup and cladding materials on the current regulatory and licensing requirements. Creep tests were also performed to investigate the effect of temperature and tensile hoop stress on hydride reorientation and subsequently to examine the temperature and stress limits against cladding material failure. It is found that the spent fuel failure is mainly caused by cladding creep rupture combined with mechanical strength degradation and hydride reorientation. Hydride reorientation from the circumferential to radial direction may reduce the critical stress intensity that accelerates radial crack propagation. The results of cladding creep tests at $400^{\circ}C$ and 130MPa hoop stress performed in this study indicate that hydride reorientation may occur between 2.6% to 7.0% strain in tube diameter with a hydrogen content range of 40-120ppm. Therefore, it is concluded that hydride re-orientation behaviour is strongly correlated with the cladding creep-induced strain, which varies as functions of temperature and stress acting on the cladding.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.179-186
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• 2009

This paper presents a thermal creep test under internal pressure and post-test characterization performed on high burnup (68 MWd/kgU) ZIRLO. This research has been done by the CSN, ENRESA, and ENUSA in order to investigate the behavior of advanced cladding materials in contemporary PWRs at higher burnup under dry cask storage conditions. Also, to investigate the hydride reorientation, the cool-down of the samples after the test has been done in a coordinated manner with the internal pressure. The creep results obtained are consistent with the expected behavior from reference CWSR material, Zr-4. During the test, the material retained significant ductility: one specimen leaked during the test at an engineering strain of the tube section of 17%; remarkably, the crack closed due to de-pressurization. Although significant hydride reorientation occurred during the cool-down under pressure, no specimen failed during the cool-down.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.1472-1482
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• 2017

Zirconium alloy cladding tube specimens were irradiated at $380^{\circ}C$ up to a fast neutron fluence of $7.5{\times}10^{24}n/m^2$ in a research reactor to investigate the effect of neutron irradiation on hydride reorientation and mechanical property degradation. Cool-down tests from $400^{\circ}C$ to $200^{\circ}C$ under 150 MPa tensile hoop stress were performed. These tests indicate that the irradiated specimens generated a smaller radial hydride fraction than did the unirradiated specimens and that higher hydrogen content generated a smaller radial hydride fraction. The irradiated specimens of 500 ppm-H showed smaller ultimate tensile strength and plastic strain than those characteristics of the 250 ppm-H specimens. This mechanical property degradation caused by neutron irradiation can be explained by tensile hoop stress-induced microcrack formation on the hydrides in the irradiation-damaged matrix and subsequent microcrack propagation along the hydrides and/or through the matrix.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.529-536
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• 2003

The objective of this study is to investigate the reorientation of hydrides with applied stress intensity factor, the peak temperature and the time when to apply the stress intensity factor in a Zr-2.5Nb pressure tube during its thermal cycle treatment. Cantilever beam (CB) specimens with a notch of 0.5 mm in depth made from the Zr-2.5Nb tube were subjected to electrolytic hydrogen charging to contain 60 ppm H and then to a thermal cycle involving heating to the peak temperature of either 310 or $380^{\circ}C$, holding there for 50 h and then cooling to the test temperature of $250^{\circ}C$. The stress intensity factor of either 6.13 or $18.4\;MPa\sqrt{m}$ was applied at the beginning of the thermal cycle, at the end of the hold at the peak temperatures and after cooling to the test temperature, respectively. The reorientation of hydrides in the Zr-2.5Nb tube was enhanced with the increased peak temperature and applied stress intensity factor. Furthermore, when the CB specimens were subjected to $18.4\;MPa\sqrt{m}$ from the beginning of the thermal cycle, the reoriented hydrides occurred almost all over the Zr-2.5Nb tube, surprisingly suppressing the growth of a DHC crack. In contrast, when the CB specimens were subjected to the stress intensity factor at the test temperature, little reorientation of hydrides was observed except the notch region, leading the Zr-2.5Nb to grow a large DHC crack. Based on the correlation between the reorientation of hydrides and the DHC crack growth, a governing factor for DHC is discussed along with the feasibility of the Kim's DHC model.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.681-688
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• 2014

Hydride reorientation behaviors of PWR cladding tubes under typical interim dry storage conditions were investigated with the use of as-received 250 and 485ppm hydrogen-charged Zr-Nb alloy cladding tubes. In order to evaluate the effect of typical cool-down processes on the radial hydride precipitation, two terminal heat-up temperatures of 300 and $400^{\circ}C$, as well as two terminal cool-down temperatures of 200 and $300^{\circ}C$, were considered. In addition, two cooling rates of 2.5 and $8.0^{\circ}C/min$ during the cool-down processes were taken into account along with zero stress or a tensile hoop stress of 150MPa. It was found that the 250ppm hydrogen-charged specimen experiencing the higher terminal heat-up temperature and the lower terminal cool-down temperature generated the highest number of radial hydrides during the cool-down process under 150MPa hoop tensile stress, which may be explained by terminal solid hydrogen solubilities for precipitation, and dissolution and remaining circumferential hydrides at the terminal heat-up temperatures. In addition, the slower cool-down rate generates the larger number of radial hydrides due to a cooling rate-dependent, longer residence time at a relatively high temperature that can accelerate the radial hydride nucleation and growth.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.728-744
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• 2024

The presence of hydrogen absorbed by zirconium-based cladding materials during reactor operation can trigger degradation mechanisms and endanger the rod integrity. Ensuring the durability of the rods in extended time-frames like dry storage requires anticipating hydrogen behavior using numerical modeling. In this context, the present paper describes a hydrogen post-processing tool for Falcon - HYPE, a PSI's in-house tool able to calculate hydrogen uptake, transport, thermochemistry, reorientation of hydrides and hydrogen-related failure criteria. The tool extracts all necessary data from a Falcon output file; therefore, it can be considered loosely coupled to Falcon. HYPE has been successfully validated against experimental data and applied to reactor operation and interim storage scenarios to present its capabilities.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.252.2-252.2
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• 2003

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.1579-1587
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• 2022

The effects of hydride amount (20-850 wppm), orientation (circumferential and radial), and temperature (room temperature, 100 ℃, 200 ℃) on the axial mechanical properties of Zircaloy-4 cladding were comprehensively examined. The fraction of radial hydride fraction in the cladding was quantified using PROPHET, an in-house radial hydride fraction analysis code. Uniaxial tensile tests (UTTs) were conducted at various temperatures to obtain the axial mechanical properties. Hydride orientation has a limited effect on the axial mechanical behavior of hydrided Zircaloy-4 cladding. Ultimate tensile stress (UTS) and associated uniform elongation demonstrated limited sensitivity to hydride content under UTT. Statistical uncertainty of UTS was found small, supporting the deterministic approach for the load-failure analysis of hydrided Zircaloy-4 cladding. These properties notably decrease with increasing temperature in the tested range. The dependence of yield strength on hydrogen content differed from temperature to temperature. The ductility-related parameters, such as total elongation, strain energy density (SED), and offset strain decrease with increasing hydride contents. The abrupt loss of ductility in UTT was found at ~700 wppm. Demonstrating a strong correlation between total elongation and offset strain, SED can be used as a comprehensive measure of ductility of hydrided zirconium alloy.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.84-85
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• 2019