Creep behavior of niobium-modified zirconium alloys

Abstract

Zirconium (Zr) alloys remain as the main cladding materials in most water reactors. Historically, a series of Zircaloys were developed, and two versions, Zircaloy-2 and -4, are still employed in many reactors. The recent trend is to use the Nb-modified zirconium alloys as the Nb addition improves cladding performance in various ways, most significant being superior long term corrosion resistance. Hence, new alloys with Nb additions have recently been developed, such as Zirlo™2Zirlo™ is a trademark of Westinghouse Electric Company, Pittsburgh, PA.2 and M5™3M5™ is a trademark of Framatome ANP, Lynchburg, VA.3. Although it is known that creep properties improve, there have been very few data available to precisely evaluate the creep characteristics of new commercial alloys. However, the creep behavior of many Nb-modified zirconium alloys has been studied in several occasions. In this study, we have collected the creep data of these Nb-modified alloys from the open literature as well as our own study over a wide range of stresses and temperatures. The data have been compared with those of conventional Zr and Zircaloys to determine the exact role Nb plays. It has been argued that Nb-modified zirconium alloys would behave as Class-A alloys (stress exponent of 3) with the Nb atoms forming solute atmospheres around dislocations and thus, impeding dislocation glide under suitable conditions. On the other hand, zirconium and Zircaloys behave as Class-M alloys with a stress exponent of ⩾4, attesting to the dislocation climb-controlled deformation mode.