Accelerated development of Zr-containing new generation ferritic steels for advanced nuclear reactors

Tan, Lizhen¹  Yang, Ying¹  Sridharan, K.² 

[1]Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

[2]Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

关键词: ZIRCONIUM ALLOYS;    FERRITIC STEELS;    WATER MODERATED REACTORS;    BUILDING MATERIALS;    SODIUM COOLED REACTORS;    FAST REACTORS;    CASTING;    WATER COOLED REACTORS;    PROTONS;    CREEP;    HEAVY IONS;    IRON IONS;    TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K;    ROLLING;    COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS;    HARDNESS;    MELTING;    PERFORMANCE;    HEAT TREATMENTS;    PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS;    COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION;    IRRADIATION;    MANAGEMENT;    OPTIMIZATION;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1234356
RP-ID  :  ORNL/TM--2015/727
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1234356
Others  :  Other: NT0104000
Others  :  NENT016
Others  :  TRN: US1600217

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

The mission of the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) program is to develop crosscutting technologies for nuclear energy applications. Advanced structural materials with superior performance at elevated temperatures are always desired for nuclear reactors, which can improve reactor economics, safety margins, and design flexibility. They benefit not only new reactors, including advanced light water reactors (LWRs) and fast reactors such as the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) that is primarily designed for management of high-level wastes, but also life extension of the existing fleet when component exchange is needed. Developing and utilizing the modern materials science tools (experimental, theoretical, and computational tools) is an important path to more efficient alloy development and process optimization. The ultimate goal of this project is, with the aid of computational modeling tools, to accelerate the development of Zr-bearing ferritic alloys that can be fabricated using conventional steelmaking methods. The new alloys are expected to have superior high-temperature creep performance and excellent radiation resistance as compared to Grade 91. The designed alloys were fabricated using arc-melting and drop-casting, followed by hot rolling and conventional heat treatments. Comprehensive experimental studies have been conducted on the developed alloys to evaluate their hardness, tensile properties, creep resistance, Charpy impact toughness, and aging resistance, as well as resistance to proton and heavy ion (Fe²⁺) irradiation.