Virtual design of formability for Zircaloy-4 sheet through texture control

Abstract

Zircaloy-4 (Zr-4) sheet is commonly used in fuel assembly structural parts as spacer grids which are subjected to high temperature and stresses, corrosive and radiation environment. The knowledge regarding the properties and the formability with respect to initial texture of Zr-4 sheet is not enough. In this paper, finite element method was used to simulate the forming process of Zr-4 sheet, and effect of different initial hardening exponent (n value) on the formability of sheet is studied. The results show formability of sheet reveals better with larger n value. However, the hardening exponent (n value) is closely related to the features of initial texture of sheet. Thus, the well-established polycrystal plasticity method, visco plastic self-consistent (VPSC) model, was used to predict the effect of different initial textures on the hardening exponent of Zr-4 sheet, and plastic deformation mechanism of different initial textures in stamping process was analyzed. The results show that a larger the hardening exponent is obtained under a smaller normal Kearn factor (Fn) of the initial texture, and the activation of prismatic slip decreases with increasing the Fn.