Burst behavior of austenitic and ferritic Fe-based alloy tubes has been examined under a simulated large break loss of coolant accident. Specifically, type 304 stainless steel (304SS) and oxidation resistant FeCrAl tubes were studied alongside Zircaloy-2 and Zircaloy-4 that are considered reference fuel cladding materials. Following the burst test, characterization of the cladding materials was carried out to gain insights regarding the integral burst behavior. Given the widespread availability of a comprehensive set of thermo-mechanical data at elevated temperatures for 304SS, a modeling framework was implemented to simulate the various processes that affect burst behavior in this Febased alloy. The most important conclusion is that cladding ballooning due to creep is negligible for Fe-based alloys. Thus, unlike Zr-based alloys, cladding cross-sectional area remains largely unchanged up to the point of burst. Therefore, for a given rod internal pressure, the temperature onset of burst in Fe-based alloys appears to be simply a function of the alloy's ultimate tensile strength, particularly at high rod internal pressures.

Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) ferritic steels typically contain a fine dispersion of nanoscopic Y(Al, Ti) oxides, leading to an improvement in mechanical and physical properties. A rapid prototyping technique, selective laser melting (SLM), was successfully applied to consolidate as-mechanically alloyed ODS-PM2000 (Fe-19Cr-5.5Al-0.5Ti-0.5Y 2 O 3 ; all wt.%) powder to fabricate solid and thin-walled builds of different thickness. This work is intended to act as a first study to investigate the tensile response of such configurations at room temperature, using miniaturized test specimens along and perpendicular to the growth direction. The 0.2% offset yield strength of as-grown wall builds was inferior to conventional PM2000 alloy (recrystallized), but could be significantly increased by conducting post-build heat treatments. Young's modulus and yield strength showed anisotropy and were enhanced when testing perpendicular to the build growth direction. Electron backscatter diffraction revealed a strong [0 0 1] fibre texture along the growth direction, which explains the anisotropic behaviour. Additionally, studies on the morphology of the individual fracture surfaces, the grain structure of the cross-section near this region and the size distribution of ODS particles in such builds were conducted. A fine dispersion of precipitates was retained in all SLM builds, and findings suggest that a certain amount of Y is probably still in atomic solution in the as-grown condition and forms new small nanoscopic dispersoids during annealing, which lead to enhanced strengthening.

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Creep tests were performed on thin wall specimens made of MC2 single crystal superalloy at 1150 °C and under controlled atmosphere. The results highlight the deleterious oxidation effect on creep properties. The assumption that oxidation leads to a non-load-bearing affected zone is insufficient to explain the difference in creep rate that was noticed between tests performed under synthetic air and under hydrogenated argon, and cannot explain the decrease of the strain rate during the tests that were carried out with a change of atmosphere from synthetic air to hydrogenated argon. On the other hand, these experimental results are consistent with vacancy injection due to partial cationic oxidation, which accelerates the creep rate by promoting creep mechanisms controlled by diffusion. The anionic protective alumina scale formed under hydrogenated argon prevents this vacancy flux. The integration of this dynamic and long range oxidation effect in creep strain models is discussed.