Abstract
Irradiation-induced creep is one of the key material properties considered in designing structural components for nuclear reactors. This paper presents results for in situ irradiation-induced creep of chemical vapor–deposited 3C silicon carbide studied by instrumented irradiation in the Halden reactor in Norway. The specimens examined were irradiated at 300 °C and up to 2.5 × 1024 n/m2 (E > 0.1 MeV) under uniaxial tensile stress of <5 or 100 MPa. Irradiation-induced creep strain was defined as the differential time-dependent strain between the two specimens. Based on the dimensional inspections before and after irradiation, an axial primary creep strain of 0.06% was obtained at the end of irradiation. The lattice constant precisely determined from high-energy x-ray diffraction analysis showed a lattice expansion roughly accounting for the primary irradiation creep strain. Analysis of data from this and previous studies indicates that creep strain is significantly dependent on at least one of the experimental conditions, such as loading mode, neutron spectrum/flux, and material grade.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 63-70 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 521 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2019 |
Funding
This study was supported by the US. Department Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, for the Advanced Fuels Campaign of the Nuclear Technology R&D program under contact DE-AC05-00OR22725 with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT Battelle, LLC. The high-energy XRD and TEM experiments were supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07- 051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities experiment. This research used the x-ray powder diffraction beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-SC0012704. Anne Campbell and Timothy Burchell at ORNL provided valuable comments on the manuscript. The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared at this time because of technical or time limitations. This study was supported by the US. Department Energy , Office of Nuclear Energy , for the Advanced Fuels Campaign of the Nuclear Technology R&D program under contact DE-AC05-00OR22725 with Oak Ridge National Laboratory , managed by UT Battelle, LLC. The high-energy XRD and TEM experiments were supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07- 051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities experiment. This research used the x-ray powder diffraction beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-SC0012704. Anne Campbell and Timothy Burchell at ORNL provided valuable comments on the manuscript.
Keywords
- Irradiation creep
- Microstructure
- Neutron irradiation
- SiC