SYMPOSIA PAPER Published: 01 January 1982
STP37050S

Long-Term Test Results of Promising New Zirconium Alloys

Source

A series of new alloys has been long-term tested in different reactors and environments together with other alloys, including Zr-2.5Nb, Ozhennite 0.5, and Zircaloy-2. One of the new alloys with the composition of Zr-1Nb-1Sn-0.5Fe has significantly improved properties.

The zirconium-niobium alloys have corrosion properties similar to Zircaloy-2 in the temperature range 240 to 400°C while they are better at 450°C and above. Conditions leading to nodular corrosion in Zircaloy-2 did not produce nodular attack on the Zr-1Nb-1Sn-0.5Fe alloy, or on Zr-2.5Nb. The niobium-containing alloys fail to suffer intergranular cracking in iodine-methanol solution even when stressed to 80 percent of their yield strength for more than 60 days. The other alloys failed at 30 percent of yield strength in a few hours. Preliminary iodine-argon iodine-pressurized burst tests indicate some improvement for the Zr-1Nb-1Sn-0.5Fe alloy compared with Zircaloy-2 with a five to ten times increase in time to failure for the same stress level.

Elongation was markedly reduced by irradiation in all the alloys. Uniform elongations of about 1 percent were observed in the 2.5Nb alloy while the highest uniform elongation of 2 to 3 percent was shown by the Zr-1Nb-1Sn-0.5Fe alloy.

Author Information

Castaldelli, L
Comitato Nazionale per l'Energia Nucleare, Rome, Italy
Fizzotti, C
Comitato Nazionale per l'Energia Nucleare, Rome, Italy
Lunde, L
Institute for Energy Technology, Kjeller, Norway
Price: $25.00
Contact Sales
Related
Reprints and Permissions
Reprints and copyright permissions can be requested through the
Copyright Clearance Center
Details
Developed by Committee: B10
Pages: 105–126
DOI: 10.1520/STP37050S
ISBN-EB: 978-0-8031-4823-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8031-0754-0