POWER REACTOR PROGRAM. Progress Report to Savannah River Operations Office, United States Atomic Energy Commission for the Period February 1 through February 28, 1962

Technical Report · Thu May 10 04:00:00 EDT 1962

OSTI ID:4821370

Isserow, S; Anderson, R W; Bremer, A B; Larson, W L

Preliminary to fabrication of a set of enriched inner tubes for the HWCTR, a prototype tube was extruded for evaluation of a modified billet design and of cladding components. Detailed evaluation of 9 brazed end closures prepared by the most promising procedures showed that at least the lowermost 0.18- in. of the seal is void-free if the radial clearance between the plug and inside cladding is no greater than about 0.007-in. As a result of brazing HWCTR tube sections, the uranium core and the cladding-core interface are affected to about 2-in. from the end of the uranium core. In this zone the uranium grains are somewhat coarser after beta treatment and the core-cladding bonds, while still adequate, appeared to have deteriorated to some extent. Metallographic and hot hardness studies conducted on tubes of unalloyed uranium, U-0.08 wt% Si, and U- 0.05 wt% Cr-0.10 wt% Mo showed that each composition has instabilities after beta treatment. Both alloys in the conditions tested were consistently harder to 600 deg C than the unalloyed uranium. (auth)

• Research Organization: Nuclear Metals, Inc., Concord, Mass.
• NSA Number: NSA-16-023321
• OSTI ID: 4821370
• Report Number(s): NMI-7248
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

BONDING
BRAZING
CHROMIUM ALLOYS
CLOSURES
CONFIGURATION
EXTRUSION
FABRICATION
FUEL CANS
FUEL ELEMENTS
GRAIN SIZE
HEAT TREATMENTS
HEAVY WATER MODERATOR
HWCTR
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
METALLOGRAPHY
MOLYBDENUM ALLOYS
POWER PLANTS
REACTOR TECHNOLOGY
REACTORS
SEALS
SILICIDES
STABILITY
TUBES
URANIUM
URANIUM ALLOYS