• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.352-359
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• 2020

The effects of hydrogen precipitation on the mechanical properties of Zircaloy-4 and Zirlo alloys were examined with uniaxial tensile tests at room temperature and at 400 ℃ and accompanying microstructural changes in the Zircaloy-4 and Zirlo alloy specimens were discussed. The elastic moduli of Zircaloy-4 and Zirlo alloys decreased with increasing hydrogen concentrations. Yield strengths of both materials tended to decrease gradually. The reductions of yield stress seems to be caused by the dissipation of yield point phenomena shown in stress-strain curves. Ultimate tensile strengths (UTS) of Zircaloy-4 and Zirlo slightly increased at low hydrogen contents, and then decreased when the concentrations exceeded 500 and 700 wppm, respectively. Uniform elongations were stable until 600 wppm and drops to 0% around 1400 wppm at room temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.463-464
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• 2005

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.266-273
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• 2004

The objective of this study is an understanding of stress corrosion cracking of metals that is recognized to mostly limit the lifetime of the structural materials by comparing the features of delayed hydride cracking of zirconium alloys with those of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of Ni-based alloys and hydrogen cracking of stainless steels. To this end, we investigated a dependence of delayed hydride cracking (DHC) velocity on the applied stress intensity factor and yield strength, and correlated a temperature dependence of the striation spacing and the DHC velocity. We reviewed a similarity of the features between the DHC of zirconium alloys, the SCC of Ni-based alloys and turbine rotor steels, and the hydrogen cracking of stainless steels and discussed the SCC phenomenon in metals with our DHC mode.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.292.1-292
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.324-325
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• 2005

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.1742-1748
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• 2020

TSSD, TSSP, and TSSP2 of hydrogen for optimized-Zirlo (Zirlo™) alloy were measured by DSC in the range of 53-457 wppm. Solvus curves of the TSSs are derived and proposed in this study. The results show that the temperature gap between TSSD and TSSP solvus lines of Zirlo™ are similar to those of other zirconium alloys, but another gap between the TSSD and TSSP2 line differs significantly. In particular, the TSSP2 solvus line becomes closer to the TSSD solvus line than to TSSP unlike Zircaloy-4, so ΔT_TSSD-TSSP2 of Zirlo™ decreases with decreasing temperature. This implies that hydride reorientation can take place more significantly in Zirlo™ than in Zircaloy-4, and the limited temperature variation of 65 ℃ during the vacuum drying and the cooling-down process may not be sufficient to prevent the triggering of hydride reorientation in Zirlo™ cladding under long-term dry storage.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.824-831
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• 2024

In order to investigate the occurring processes during long-term dry storage of spent fuel assemblies, a joined project called SPIZWURZ, between the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the Gesellschaft für Anlagen-und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS), was started. Aim of the SPIZWURZ project is the determination and quantification of the influence of texture and elastic strain on diffusion and solubility of hydrogen in three different zirconium alloys used in western Europe during a long-term cooling transient (1 K/d) starting at 400 ℃. The strain in the cladding of an irradiated spent fuel rod shall be measured. Models predicting the formation of radial oriented hydrides will be validated, improved, and implemented in the GRS fuel rod performance code TESPA-ROD. This paper describes the SPIZWURZ project and already obtained first results.