A development program is described in which reactor grade Zr-2.5Nb pressure tubes were produced with properties comparable to current reactor tubes but which are expected to show lower in-reactor creep and growth. Lower creep and growth rates would mean smaller axial elongations of tubes in service.
Evaluation of the tubes showed that they met the specification requirements and compared favorably with tubes produced by the current route. Early in-reactor creep tests suggest that the development tubes will exhibit similar diametral creep behavior to current tubes. In-reactor growth tests have not yet reached steady-state behavior. The properties and possible reasons for the behavior are reported and discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.