Abstract
An evaluation was made of irradiated zirconium-liner cladding for its resistance to iodine-induced stress corrosion cracking (SCC). Emphasis was put on irradiation-induced hardening in zirconium and SCC resistance in zirconium-liner cladding as compared with Zircaloy-2 cladding. The Vickers microhardness test revealed that crystal bar zirconium experienced less hardening than Zircaloy-2 during neutron exposure. The SCC resistance of zirconium-liner cladding was evaluated for failure strains under the tube pressurization SCC test, and compared with the results of Zircaloy-2 cladding. The failure strains of zirconium-liner cladding were significantly larger than those of Zircaloy-2 cladding over all neutron fluence ranges examined, e.g., more than ten times at 1.0 × 10 21 n/ cm 2 ( E > 1 MeV). Judging from our results on the Vickers microhardness and SCC tests, good SCC resistance of zirconium-liner cladding could be expected even at high fluences.
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