Abstract
Under certain severe accident conditions, the fuel rods of nuclear power plants are exposed to high temperature/pressure steam environments in which the Zr alloy cladding is rapidly oxidized. As alternative claddings, the oxidation resistances of SiC-based materials and stainless steels with high Cr and/or Al additions have been examined from 800-1200°C in high-pressure steam environments. Very low reaction kinetics were observed with alumina-forming FeCrAl alloys at 1200°C while Fe-Cr alloys with only 15-20% Cr were rapidly attacked.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 396-400 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 427 |
| Issue number | 1-3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2012 |
Funding
The authors thank Dr. Y. Katoh, and Dr. P.F. Tortorelli for helpful comments on this manuscript. The work presented in this manuscript was supported under the Advanced Fuel Campaign of the Fuel Cycle R&D program at Office of Nuclear Energy, US Department of Energy. Research supported in part by ORNL’s Shared Research Equipment (ShaRE) User Facility, which is sponsored by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US 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.