Hydrogen motion in Zircaloy-4 cladding during a LOCA transient
Résumé
Hydrogen and oxygen are key elements influencing the embrittlement of zirconiumbased nuclear fuel cladding during the quench phase following a Loss Of Coolant Accident
(LOCA). The understanding of the mechanisms influencing the motion of these two chemical
elements in the metal is required to fully describe the material embrittlement. High temperature
steam oxidation tests were performed on pre-hydrided Zircaloy-4 samples with hydrogen
contents ranging between 11 and 400 wppm prior to LOCA transient. Thanks to the use of both
Electron Probe Micro-Analysis (EPMA) and Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis (μ-ERDA), the
chemical elements partitioning has been systematically quantified inside the prior-β phase.
Image analysis and metallographic examinations were combined to provide an average oxygen
profile as well as hydrogen profile within the cladding thickness after LOCA transient. The
measured hydrogen profile is far from homogeneous. Experimental distributions are compared
to those predicted numerically using calculations derived from a finite difference thermodiffusion code (DIFFOX) developed at IRSN.
Domaines
Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]
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