Effect of hydride orientation on fracture toughness of Zircaloy-4 cladding

Fracture of Zircaloy-4 Fuel Cladding Tubes with Hydride Blisters

“…Through-thickness crack propagation and fracture toughness of hydrided zirconium alloys was previously analyzed at 25°C, 300°C, 375°C by Dubey et al (1999), Kuroda et al (2000), Pierron et al (2003), Glendening et al (2004), Desquines et al (2005), Bertolino et al (2006), Tomiyasu et al (2007), Daum et al (2007), Georgenthum et al (2008), Udagawa et al (2009), Sartoris et al (2010, Hsu et al (2011), Raynaud et al (2012. It appears in these studies that hydrogen content and hydride orientation are key parameters to assess zirconium alloys fracture toughness at room temperature.…”

Investigation of δ zirconium hydride morphology in a single crystal using quantitative phase field simulations supported by experiments

“…In particular, whereas mesoscale hydrides tend to orient circumferentially in a zirconium cladding tube, the presence of an external tensile stress applied in the circumferential direction during cooling can lead to mesoscale hydride structures with an overall radial orientation. The change from circumferential to radial hydrides is called hydride reorientation and has been extensively studied because of its importance in crack propagation [2,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]. Because hydrides are brittle, hydride reorientation can ease crack propagation through the cladding thickness, which may result in the release of fission products.…”

“…towards zones in tension to minimize the eigenstrain introduced in Eq. (24). The interaction between the hydrogen in solid solution and the stress field is described as the elastic interaction [121-123]…”

A machine learning microstructurally predictive framework for the failure of hydrided zirconium alloys

“…Critically, hydride orientation, morphology, distribution, texture, crystalline structures, spacing, and dislocation-densities all have interrelated effects on thermo-mechanical behavior at scales ranging from the nano to the micro [7][8][9] , and collectively affect fracture nucleation and propagation 5,7,8 . Hsu et al 9 investigated fracture toughness on thin-walled tubing for different temperatures.…”

“…Critically, hydride orientation, morphology, distribution, texture, crystalline structures, spacing, and dislocation-densities all have interrelated effects on thermo-mechanical behavior at scales ranging from the nano to the micro [7][8][9] , and collectively affect fracture nucleation and propagation 5,7,8 . Hsu et al 9 investigated fracture toughness on thin-walled tubing for different temperatures. They determined that hydride orientation, hydrogen content, and temperature were all factors influencing fracture toughness in hydrided zirconium alloys and concluded that the presence of radial hydrides reduces the fracture toughness at room temperature when compared with distributions of circumferential hydrides, with J max values of pure circumferentially hydrided samples up to 40 kJ/m 2 , and values for samples with 52.2% radial hydrides as low as 11 kJ/m 29 .…”