Abstract
Understanding the statistical properties of mechanical properties of non-irradiated and neutron-irradiated SiC/SiC composites is essential for component design. This study aims to evaluate the detailed damage accumulation behavior of composites focusing on two fracture parameters: proportional limit stress (PLS) and acoustic emission (AE) onset stress. The developmental underwater AE technique, which is benefit in non-contact in-situ failure monitoring method during mechanical testing and in handle of the irradiated material, was first applied to evaluate damage accumulation behavior. Two types of chemical vapor infiltration SiC/SiC composites were used: one reinforced with Hi-Nicalon Type-S SiC fiber and one reinforced with Tyranno-SA3 SiC fiber in the form of satin-woven 2D fabrics with pyrolytic carbon interface. Neutron irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory reached a fluence of 30 dpa at a temperature of 620–670°C. Four-point flexural tests were conducted to evaluate post-irradiation strength. Weibull statistics did not suggest marked degradation of composite strength. Detailed failure behavior evaluated by AE demonstrated no irradiation-induced change of the AE onset stress (i.e., crack initiation equivalent stress). Failure probability analysis suggests that increasing the reliability of composites (i.e., the Weibull modulus rather than strength itself) is essential to expanding the design margin and benefiting from a probabilistic design approach.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 153787 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 566 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2022 |
Funding
Notice: This manuscript has been co-authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05–00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). This study was implemented under the U.S. DOE-QST collaboration. The ORNL portion of this research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. This study was also supported by MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP 16K18251. A portion of this research used resources at the HFIR, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by ORNL. This study was implemented under the U.S. DOE-QST collaboration. The ORNL portion of this research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. This study was also supported by MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP 16K18251. A portion of this research used resources at the HFIR, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by ORNL.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| DOE-QST | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Fusion Energy Sciences | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| UT-Battelle | DE-AC05–00OR22725 |
| Japan Society for the Promotion of Science | JP 16K18251 |
| Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology |