Accelerated development of Zr-containing new generation ferritic steels for advanced nuclear reactors

Technical Report · Tue Dec 01 00:00:00 EST 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1234356· OSTI ID:1234356

Tan, Lizhen ^[1]; Yang, Ying ^[1]; Sridharan, K. ^[2]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

The mission of the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) program is to develop crosscutting technologies for nuclear energy applications. Advanced structural materials with superior performance at elevated temperatures are always desired for nuclear reactors, which can improve reactor economics, safety margins, and design flexibility. They benefit not only new reactors, including advanced light water reactors (LWRs) and fast reactors such as the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) that is primarily designed for management of high-level wastes, but also life extension of the existing fleet when component exchange is needed. Developing and utilizing the modern materials science tools (experimental, theoretical, and computational tools) is an important path to more efficient alloy development and process optimization. The ultimate goal of this project is, with the aid of computational modeling tools, to accelerate the development of Zr-bearing ferritic alloys that can be fabricated using conventional steelmaking methods. The new alloys are expected to have superior high-temperature creep performance and excellent radiation resistance as compared to Grade 91. The designed alloys were fabricated using arc-melting and drop-casting, followed by hot rolling and conventional heat treatments. Comprehensive experimental studies have been conducted on the developed alloys to evaluate their hardness, tensile properties, creep resistance, Charpy impact toughness, and aging resistance, as well as resistance to proton and heavy ion (Fe²⁺) irradiation.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1234356
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM-2015/727; NT0104000; NENT016; TRN: US1600217
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
ZIRCONIUM ALLOYS
FERRITIC STEELS
WATER MODERATED REACTORS
BUILDING MATERIALS
SODIUM COOLED REACTORS
FAST REACTORS
CASTING
WATER COOLED REACTORS
PROTONS
CREEP
HEAVY IONS
IRON IONS
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K
ROLLING
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
HARDNESS
MELTING
PERFORMANCE
HEAT TREATMENTS
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
IRRADIATION
MANAGEMENT
OPTIMIZATION