TY - JOUR
T1 - Crack growth in the through-thickness direction of hydrided thin-wall Zircaloy sheet
AU - Raynaud, Patrick A.
AU - Koss, Donald A.
AU - Motta, Arthur T.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support and encouragement from Ralph Meyer and Harold Scott at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Surface preparation prior to hydrogen charging was performed at the Penn State Nanofabrication facility. The authors also acknowledge helpful discussions with Christophe Poussard and Claude Sainte-Catherine of the CEA, as well as Jean Desquines at IRSN. Christophe Poussard of CEA and Jean Desquines of IRSN also provided assistance with Cast3M modeling. S. Carassou and O. Rabouille provided an executable version of Hydromorph and assistance with the code. Last but not least, the authors would like to acknowledge extensive discussions with Kwai Chan of Southwest Research Institute.
PY - 2012/1
Y1 - 2012/1
N2 - In a reactivity-initiated accident, cladding failure may occur by crack initiation within a defect such as a hydride rim or blister and subsequent crack propagation through the thickness of the thin-wall cladding. In such a circumstance, determining the cladding resistance to crack propagation in the through-thickness direction is crucial to predicting cladding failure. To address this issue, through-thickness crack propagation in hydrided Zircaloy-4 sheet was analyzed at 25 °C, 300 °C, and 375 °C. At 25 °C, the fracture toughness decreased with increasing hydrogen content and with an increasing fraction of radial hydrides. Hydride particles fractured ahead of the crack tip, creating a path for crack growth. At both 300 °C and 375 °C, the resistance to crack-growth initiation was sufficiently high that crack extension was often caused by crack-tip blunting. There was no evidence of hydride particles fracturing near the crack tip, and no significant effect of hydrogen content on fracture toughness was observed at these elevated temperatures.
AB - In a reactivity-initiated accident, cladding failure may occur by crack initiation within a defect such as a hydride rim or blister and subsequent crack propagation through the thickness of the thin-wall cladding. In such a circumstance, determining the cladding resistance to crack propagation in the through-thickness direction is crucial to predicting cladding failure. To address this issue, through-thickness crack propagation in hydrided Zircaloy-4 sheet was analyzed at 25 °C, 300 °C, and 375 °C. At 25 °C, the fracture toughness decreased with increasing hydrogen content and with an increasing fraction of radial hydrides. Hydride particles fractured ahead of the crack tip, creating a path for crack growth. At both 300 °C and 375 °C, the resistance to crack-growth initiation was sufficiently high that crack extension was often caused by crack-tip blunting. There was no evidence of hydride particles fracturing near the crack tip, and no significant effect of hydrogen content on fracture toughness was observed at these elevated temperatures.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80054098052&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=80054098052&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2011.09.005
DO - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2011.09.005
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80054098052
SN - 0022-3115
VL - 420
SP - 69
EP - 82
JO - Journal of Nuclear Materials
JF - Journal of Nuclear Materials
IS - 1-3
ER -