Abstract
Sodium fast reactor cores present a truly challenging environment for the fuel cladding and core structural materials that limit achievable fuel burnup in these systems. Modern nanostructured ferritic alloys have the potential to deliver the desired high performance characteristics where historic austenitic and ferritic/martensitic alloys fall short. In this paper, a new nanostructured ferritic alloy, OFRAC (Oak Ridge Fast Reactor Advanced Fuel Cladding), is developed and demonstrated in cladding geometry with a length > 1 m. The alloy composition and microstructure are tailored to deliver dramatically improved strength and creep resistance. At 600 °C the ultimate tensile strength is ∼600 MPa and the stress to induce a steady state strain rate of 10−6 s−1 is 500 MPa vs. 200 MPa for traditional ferritic/martensitic alloys. A very high defect sink density was engineered in these alloys that is expected to further enhance the traditional good swelling and irradiation creep resistance of ferritic/martensitic steels. These significant improvements along with the demonstrated viability for seamless cladding production indicate that this alloy is a compelling and viable choice for sodium fast reactor fuel cladding applications.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 151928 |
Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
Volume | 529 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2020 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy 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).The authors are grateful to Kan Sakamoto (NFD) and Kory Linton (ORNL) in facilitating the tube manufacturing. Maxim Gussev (ORNL) performed tube mechanical testing. Kevin Field provided useful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Advanced Fuels Campaign. The authors are grateful to Kan Sakamoto (NFD) and Kory Linton (ORNL) in facilitating the tube manufacturing. Maxim Gussev (ORNL) performed tube mechanical testing. Kevin Field provided useful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Advanced Fuels Campaign . Appendix A
Keywords
- Nanostructured ferritic alloy
- OFRAC
- Sodium fast reactor
- Tensile and creep properties
- Thin wall tubing