Study on Change of Chromium Plating Thickness of Threads of Control Rod Drive Mechanism of Nuclear Power

Abstract

Control rod drive mechanism is one of the key main components in nuclear power plants and serves in harsh environments such as high temperature, high pressure and nuclear radiation. In order to ensure the service life and to prevent biting when assembling, some of the threads of control rod drive mechanism need to be chromium plated. In view of the high demands of the same chromium plating thickness on all surfaces of the threads of control rod drive mechanism of nuclear power and non-uniformity in chromium plating thickness of threads due to poor throwing power of chromium plating solution, five representative kinds of threads of control rod drive mechanism were selected and the plating thickness change of the root diameter, pitch diameter and crest diameter of threads was studied in this paper by means of depositing different thickness chromium coating on the surface of threads. The experimental results show that thicker coating is deposited on the crest of thread because of high current density and thinner coating is deposited on the root of thread because of low current density, which can provide reference for specification of chromium plating thickness of thread products of control rod drive mechanism.