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Corrosion and Oxidation Resistance Behaviors of Ta-Containing Low Alloying Zirconium

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Abstract

Zirconium alloys are widely used to fabricate nuclear fuel claddings, and thus is desirable to improve the resistance of such alloys to corrosion and structural instability. In this study, Ta was used as an alloying element to improve the corrosion and oxidation resistance of zirconium alloys. The model alloy (TaZL) contained 0.03 wt% Ta and other elements with a proportion of less than 1 wt% in total (0.1 wt% Nb, 0.4 wt% Fe, 0.2 wt% Cr) in a zirconium base. The corrosion test involving pressurized water at 360 °C and oxidation test involving steam at 1200 °C indicated that TaZL exhibited the lowest weight gains among those of compared conventional and advanced Zr alloys. The corrosion and oxidation resistances of TaZL were respectively improved by 4 and 1.5 times compared to the corresponding values of Zircaloy-4. The microstructures of the oxide formed on TaZL were columnar along the oxide growth direction and did not change from columnar to equiaxed, which resulted in the high resistance of the alloy to corrosion and oxidation.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP) (No. 2017M2A8A5015058).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ATF Technology Development Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon, 34057, Republic of Korea

    Il-Hyun Kim, Yang-Il Jung, Byoung-Kwon Choi & Hyun-Gil Kim

  2. Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, 04765, Republic of Korea

    Il-Hyun Kim & Jae-Il Jang

  3. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Yang-Il Jung

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  1. Il-Hyun Kim
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Correspondence to Yang-Il Jung.

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Kim, IH., Jung, YI., Choi, BK. et al. Corrosion and Oxidation Resistance Behaviors of Ta-Containing Low Alloying Zirconium. Met. Mater. Int. 27, 3079–3084 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12540-020-00610-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12540-020-00610-2

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