Advanced surface plasma nitriding for development of corrosion resistant and accident tolerant fuel cladding: Final Report
Although various surface coating techniques have been proposed to increase oxidation and corrosion resistance of fuel cladding materials, the de-bonding of the coating layer with the original cladding matrix under exposure to coolants makes such approaches unsuitable for reactor applications. Furthermore, the feasibility of techniques for large scale processing on cladding tubes remains another technological bottleneck. This project aims to develop a hollow cathode plasma nitriding technique to solve the above issues. Starting with alloys of DOE interest, the team will apply an advanced surface plasma nitriding technique to convert alloy surface layers into nitride layers for better structural integrity and compatibility with both coolants and nuclear fuels. The technique can form uniform nitride layers on both inner and outer surfaces of cylindrical hollow tubes. Both treated and untreated samples will be irradiated by using Fe self ions or dual beams of Fe ions and He ions. Various microstructural characterizations and mechanical property measurements will be performed. For outside surfaces, samples will be tested in high temperature water and liquid molten salt to evaluate their corrosion resistance and compatibility with coolants for LWR and fast reactor applications. For inside surfaces, solid-to-solid diffusion couple experiments will be used to study interface reactions of nitrided samples with uranium, to test whether a nitrided layer can slow down fuel-cladding interactions. The project will impact both the development of advanced methods for manufacturing and the development of advanced reactor in-core structural materials. The proposed technique can form nitride layers on alloys of irregular shapes without an edging effect - an issue encountered in traditional plasma nitriding processes, and is suitable for surface processing of other in-core components.
- Research Organization:
- Texas A&M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- NE0008450
- OSTI ID:
- 1497857
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-TAMU-NE0008450-1; 15-8521
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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