Corrosion Behavior and Oxide Films of New Zirconium Cladding Corroded at Different Conditions

Abstract

Zirconium alloys are mostly served as the cladding materials in water reactors. Corrosion is one of the concerning problems in zirconium utilization. Transition of corrosion occurs every 2~3 μm in thickness, but its mechanism is not confirmed. To study the influence of water chemistry and the mechanism behind transition, a new type of zirconium cladding was tested for three corrosion conditions: the pure water, LiOH solution, LiOH/H3BO3 solution at 360°C/18.6MPa. For all cases, Zr-0.5Sn-0.15Nb-0.5Fe-0.2V cladding had a lower corrosion rate and a longer transition time than N36 cladding. The corrosion results showed that the corrosion rate was the highest and the transition time was the shortest in LiOH solution. Oxide phase information on the oxidized surface was obtained by Raman study. Tetragonal zirconia, embedded in the surface, was found at the beginning of corrosion. As the corrosion time increased, tetragonal phase stress was almost released and the content of tetragonal phase was also decreased to zero at the transition point. Stable tetragonal phase was found on the samples corroded in pure water. However, in LiOH solution, it was eliminated the quickest. The acceleration of transition in LiOH solution is partly resulted from the fast transformation of tetragonal phase. The reason for the longer transition time in N2 cladding can be directly attributed to the smaller decrease of the tetragonal phase.