Development of Ce-type FeCrAl-ODS ferritic steel to accident tolerant fuel for BWRs

Conference · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2016

OSTI ID:22764062

Sakamoto, K.; Ouchi, A.; Suzuki, A.; Higuchi, T.; Hirai, M. ^[1]; Oono, N.; Ukai, S. ^[2]

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1. Nippon Nuclear Fuel Development, Co., Ltd., 2163 Narita-cho, Oarai-machi, Ibaraki-ken, 311-1313 (Japan)
2. Faculty of Engineering, Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-8628 (Japan)

A Ce-type FeCrAl-ODS ferritic steel has been examined as a candidate Fe-Cr-Al alloy for the fuel cladding in BWRs. The properties examined in this study were the corrosion resistance to coolant water, the resistance to the high temperature steam and the interactions with neighboring materials (UO{sub 2} and B{sub 4}C). For the corrosion test, the specimens were corroded in an autoclave with circulating pure water at 633 K and a pressure of approximately 20 MPa. In addition to the Ce-ODS, MA956 and SS316L alloys were also corroded as reference materials. For the steam oxidation test, the specimens were oxidized in an electric furnace at 1473 K for 100 h and 1573 K for 25 h under wet Ar gas flow. The materials reaction test with B{sub 4}C was carried out at 1573 K and 1673 K for 1 h. The test with UO{sub 2} was performed in a high purity He gas at 1573 K and 1673 K for 1 h. A disk of UO{sub 2} pellet was set on the Ce-ODS specimen and the reaction couple was held in the pure Zr box to prevent a surface oxidation by residual oxidizing gases. The cross sections of reaction couples were observed by an optical microscope (OM) and a secondary electron microscope (SEM) with energy-dispersive spectroscope (EDS) after the materials interaction tests. The results show that the Ce-type FeCrAl-ODS steel has demonstrated a good corrosion resistance to coolant water and high accident tolerances in the oxidation with high temperature steam and in the interactions with neighboring materials. Those favorable properties would imply that the oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) technology can be a candidate option for further development of accident-tolerant fuels.

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society - ANS, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22764062
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
42 ENGINEERING
ACCIDENT-TOLERANT NUCLEAR FUELS
BORON CARBIDES
BWR TYPE REACTORS
CLADDING
COOLANTS
CORROSION
CORROSION RESISTANCE
ELECTRIC FURNACES
ELECTRON MICROSCOPES
FERRITIC STEELS
FUEL PELLETS
GAS FLOW
OPTICAL MICROSCOPES
OXIDATION
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
STEAM
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K
TEMPERATURE RANGE 1000-4000 K
URANIUM DIOXIDE