Oxidation and embrittlement behavior of FeCrAl-ODS cladding tube under loss-of-coolant accident conditions

Narukawa, Takafumi; Kondo, Keietsu; Fujimura, Yuki; Kakiuchi, Kazuo; Udagawa, Yutaka; Nemoto, Yoshiyuki

Journal of Nuclear Materials, 587, p.154736_1 - 154736_8, 2023/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2023.154736

Investigation of the oxidation behavior of Zircaloy-4 cladding in a mixture of air and steam

Nemoto, Yoshiyuki; Ishijima, Yasuhiro; Kondo, Keietsu; Fujimura, Yuki; Kaji, Yoshiyuki

Journal of Nuclear Materials, 575, p.154209_1 - 154209_19, 2023/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.154209

Previous studies had shown that in certain conditions, the rate of oxidation of zirconium (Zr) based alloy fuel cladding is higher in air-steam mixtures than in dry air. In severe accidents in the spent fuel pool and in other air ingress accidents in nuclear power plants, the cladding is likely to be oxidized in an air-steam mixture, which makes it crucial to have an in-depth understanding of the nature of oxidation and its kinetics in that environment. Oxidation tests were conducted at 800C on Zircaloy-4 specimens in a mix of (air+steam) with various component ratios. Oxidation kinetics, details of the oxide layer, and hydrogen pick-up in the specimen were studied to investigate the mechanism of oxidation in each of these sets of conditions. Zirconium nitride precipitation in the oxide layer during the initial stages of the pre-breakaway oxidation stage and the widespread porous oxide growth on the cladding surface in the latter post-BA oxidation stage are related to the oxidation mechanism in the air-steam mixture. The differences in the mechanism of oxidation of the cladding in dry air and air-steam mixtures are discussed based on the experimental results.

Surface nanostructures on Nb-doped SrTiO irradiated with swift heavy ions at grazing incidence

Ishikawa, Norito; Fujimura, Yuki; Kondo, Keietsu; Szabo, G. L.*; Wilhelm, R. A.*; Ogawa, Hiroaki; Taguchi, Tomitsugu*

Nanotechnology, 33(23), p.235303_1 - 235303_10, 2022/06

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6528/ac58a5

A single crystal of SrTiO doped with niobium (Nb-STO) was irradiated with 200 MeV Au ions at grazing incidence. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are used to study the relation between irradiation-induced change of surface topography and corresponding material property changes. As expected, multiple hillocks as high as 5-6 nm are imaged by AFM observation. It is also found that the region in between the adjacent hillocks is slightly elevated rather than depressed. Line-like contrasts along the ion paths are found in both AFM phase images and SEM images, indicating the formation of continuous ion tracks in addition to multiple hillocks. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation shows that the ion tracks in the near-surface region are found to be relatively large, whereas buried ion tracks in the deeper region are relatively small. The results suggest that recrystallization plays an important role in the formation of small ion tracks in the deep region, whereas formation of large ion tracks in the near-surface region is likely due to the absence of recrystallization.

High-temperature short-range order in MnRhSi

Yamauchi, Hiroki; Sari, D. P.*; Watanabe, Isao*; Yasui, Yukio*; Chang, L.-J.*; Kondo, Keietsu; Ito, Takashi; Ishikado, Motoyuki*; Hagihara, Masato*; Frontzek, M. D.*; et al.

Communications Materials (Internet), 1, p.43_1 - 43_6, 2020/07

https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-020-0042-1

High-temperature short-range order is discovered up to 720 K in MnRhSi by complementary use of neutron scattering and muon spin relaxation measurements.

FE-SEM observations of multiple nanohillocks on SrTiO irradiated with swift heavy ions

Kitamura, Akane; Ishikawa, Norito; Kondo, Keietsu; Fujimura, Yuki; Yamamoto, Shunya*; Yamaki, Tetsuya*

Transactions of the Materials Research Society of Japan, 44(3), p.85 - 88, 2019/06

https://doi.org/10.14723/tmrsj.44.85

Swift heavy ions can create nanosized hillocks on the surfaces of various ceramics. When these materials are irradiated with swift heavy ions at normal incidence, each ion impact results in the formation of a single hillock on the surfaces. In contrast, irradiation at grazing incidence forms chains of multiple hillocks on the surface, for example, for strontium titanate (SrTiO). So far, chains of multiple hillocks have been investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). It should be noted that AFM measurements involve systematic errors of several nanometers due to the finite size of the probe tip. Consequently, it is possible that the image of one hillock may merge with that of a neighboring hillock even if the two hillocks are well separated. In contrast to AFM, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) is a useful technique for obtaining higher-resolution images. In this study, we observed multiple nanohillocks on the surfaces of SrTiO using FE-SEM. Crystals of SrTiO(100) and 0.05 wt% Nb-doped SrTiO(100) were irradiated with 350 MeV Xe ions, respectively, at grazing incidence, where the angle between the sample surface and the beam was less than 2. On the SrTiO surface, a chain of periodic nanohillocks is created along the ion path. In contrast, black lines accompanied by hillocks are observed on the Nb-doped SrTiO surface.

Ion irradiation effects on FeCrAl-ODS ferritic steel

Kondo, Keietsu; Aoki, So; Yamashita, Shinichiro; Ukai, Shigeharu*; Sakamoto, Kan*; Hirai, Mutsumi*; Kimura, Akihiko*

Nuclear Materials and Energy (Internet), 15, p.13 - 16, 2018/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nme.2018.05.022

Radiation hardening and microstructural evolution of ion irradiated 12Cr-6Al ODS ferritic steel was studied. Ion irradiation experiments were performed using Fe ions up to the nominal displacement damage of 20 dpa at the irradiation temperature was 300C. The monotonical increase of radiation hardening with dose was confirmed by experimentally obtained hardness data. The radiation hardening was also calculated theoretically by introducing the microstructural character examined by TEM into the dispersed barrier hardening model. The results showed a good agreement with the experimentally obtained data up to 5 dpa, while a slight discrepancy was found between theoretical and experimental hardness values at 20 dpa. Radiation hardening was mainly caused by irradiation-induced defect clusters below the irradiation dose of 5 dpa. As the irradiation dose increased toward 20 dpa, an additional influence of the radiation appeared, which was assumed to be induced by ' phase transformation.

Investigation of Zircaloy-2 oxidation model for SFP accident analysis

Nemoto, Yoshiyuki; Kaji, Yoshiyuki; Ogawa, Chihiro; Kondo, Keietsu; Nakashima, Kazuo*; Kanazawa, Toru*; Tojo, Masayuki*

Journal of Nuclear Materials, 488, p.22 - 32, 2017/05

AA2016-0383.pdf:0.86MB

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2017.03.004

The authors previously conducted thermogravimetric analyses on zircaloy-2 in air. By using the thermogravimetric data, an oxidation model was constructed in this study so that it can be applied for the modeling of cladding degradation in spent fuel pool (SFP) severe accident condition. For its validation, oxidation tests of long cladding tube were conducted, and computational fluid dynamics analyses using the constructed oxidation model were proceeded to simulate the experiments. In the oxidation tests, high temperature thermal gradient along the cladding axis was applied and air flow rates in testing chamber were controlled to simulate hypothetical SFP accidents. The analytical outputs successfully reproduced the growth of oxide film and porous oxide layer on the claddings in oxidation tests, and validity of the oxidation model was proved. Influence of air flow rate for the oxidation behavior was thought negligible in the conditions investigated in this study.

Silver photo-diffusion and photo-induced macroscopic surface deformation of GeS/Ag/Si substrate

Sakaguchi, Yoshifumi*; Asaoka, Hidehito; Uozumi, Yuki; Kondo, Keietsu; Yamazaki, Dai; Soyama, Kazuhiko; Ailavajhala, M.*; Mitkova, M.*

Journal of Applied Physics, 120(5), p.055103_1 - 055103_10, 2016/08

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4959207

Stress corrosion cracking behavior of type 304 stainless steel irradiated under different neutron dose rates at JMTR

Kaji, Yoshiyuki; Kondo, Keietsu; Aoyagi, Yoshiteru; Kato, Yoshiaki; Taguchi, Taketoshi; Takada, Fumiki; Nakano, Junichi; Ugachi, Hirokazu; Tsukada, Takashi; Takakura, Kenichi*; et al.

Proceedings of 15th International Conference on Environmental Degradation of Materials in Nuclear Power Systems - Water Reactors (CD-ROM), p.1203 - 1216, 2011/08

In order to investigate the effect of neutron dose rate on tensile property and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) growth behavior, the crack growth rate (CGR) test, tensile test and microstructure observation have been conducted with type 304 stainless steel specimens. The specimens were irradiated in high temperature water simulating the temperature of boiling water reactor (BWR) up to about 1dpa with two different dose rates at the Japan Materials Testing Reactor (JMTR). The radiation hardening increased with the dose rate, but there was little effect on CGR. Increase of the yield strength of specimens irradiated with the low dose rate condition was caused by the increase of number density of frank loops. Little difference of radiation-induced segregation at grain boundaries was observed in specimens irradiated by different dose rates. Furthermore, there was little effect on local plastic deformation behavior near crack tip in the crystal plasticity simulation.

New evaluation method of material degradation considering synergistic effects of radiation damage

Miwa, Yukio; Kaji, Yoshiyuki; Okubo, Nariaki; Kondo, Keietsu; Tsukada, Takashi

Nihon Kikai Gakkai M&M 2007 Zairyo Rikigaku Kanfarensu Koen Rombunshu (CD-ROM), p.236 - 237, 2009/07

In core structural materials of next generation reactors, materials' degradation behavior by neutron irradiation damage and thermal (cyclic) stress should be considered with fair accuracy in design process, because the materials are used under higher temperature gradients and higher neutron flux fields than those in the present light water reactors. In the current experiential design rules, service lives of core structural components were determined by the materials degradation such as the increase of ductile-to-brittle transition temperature after post irradiation examination data. However, other materials degradations such as irradiation-assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC), which occurs by the degradation synergistically interacting with radiation hardening, local chemical composition change, swelling and radiation creep, should be considered reasonably in the design process of the next generation reactors, because of the anticipation of the beneficial effects by synergy of radiation damage. To predict material failure by IASCC with reasonable accuracy, in this study, each material degradation phenomenon with different dose dependence was modeled with consideration of radiation induced stress relaxation. In this paper, the models obtained by ion-irradiation experiments and compared by data from neutron irradiation experiments were presented, and the concept of our new evaluation method and the programming code for the failure simulation were outlined.