The presented work is aimed at the evaluation of the cold bending capacity of high-borated austenitic stainless steel sheets. Due to their excellent neutron-absorbing capability, borated stainless steels belong to the group of tailor-made structural materials widely used for vertical storage baskets for holding spent nuclear fuel assemblies in cooling pools at dry or wet storage facilities. The basket consists of individual fuel assembly cells. Each polygonal cell is usually welded from several steel strips. It would be advantageous to use bent steel semi-product to avoid welded seams as much as possible. Welded seams are difficult to make, and moreover, they are susceptible to corrosion. However, high-borated stainless steels, because of their boron content, show limited hot and cold workability. Thus, their cold bending capacity would be the primary issue. Their austenitic matrix with embedded hard and brittle boride particles is prone to the evolution and fast propagation of dimple transgranular fracture. This work is focused on the bending aspects of borated steel sheets with respect to the most commonly used hexagonal cell geometry. Experimental results provide practical recommendations for the rack design. The damage criterion has also been proposed using FEM simulations in DEFORM®.
The paper examines and compares the properties of laser clad deposits of Stellite 6 and Stellite 21 on 1.4923 + QT base material which is often used for power generation components. Cladding was performed using two different bead widths on a 63 mm diameter shaft with and without pre-heating. The widths of the beads deposited by a laser welding head were 1 millimetre and 3 millimetres. Using EDX, chemical dilution between the clad beads and the base material was examined. The paper gives a detailed description of metallographic observation of the claddings and the heat-affected zone and correlates the findings with hardness values. It also presents results of wear analysis conducted at simulated service conditions at 550°C.
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