HIGH TEMPERATURE OXIDATION TESTS ON ZrNbMoGe ALLOY FOR CLADDING OF NUCLEAR FUEL MATERIALS
Daftar Isi:
- Analysis of high temperature corrosion resistance on ZrNbMoGe alloys has been carried out in the research, by testing the effects of elements composition and annealing process on the materials oxidation properties. The ZrNbMoGe alloys were synthesized by using argon arc-melting furnace with varied Ge composition of 1%wt, 2%wt and 3%wt. The annealing processes were performed at temperature of 800 °C for 8 hours while dry-oxidation tests by pressurized steam water at 500 °C and 800 °C for 36 hours. The samples were characterized of their hardness and microstructure properties. The results show that there were weight increasing of alloys between 0,0035 mg/cm2 to 0,0097 mg/cm2 with the mean corrosion resistance rate between 00006 mg/cm2 hours to 0,00046 mg/cm2 hours. The increase in Ge element and temperature rise up the high temperature corossion resistance. The corossion resistance rate was also less affected by annealing process. It was obtained that the corossion resistance of the zirconium alloy with composition of Zr 96.5%wt, Nb 1.5%wt, Mo 0.5% wt and Ge 2%wt have similar properties with the zircalloy-4 which usually utilized as the cladding materials for PWR type of Nuclear Power Plants.Keywords: Zirconium alloys, Corrosion, Annealing, Cladding materials.