An elasto-plastic fracture mechanics based Model for Assessment of Hydride Embrittlement in Zircaloy Cladding Tubes
This paper describes a finite element based fracture mechanics model to assess how hydrides affect the integrity of zircaloy cladding tubes. The hydrides are assumed to fracture at a low load whereas the propagation of the fractured hydrides in the matrix material and failure of the tube is controlled by nonlinear fracture mechanics. The paper quantifies the relative importance of hydride geometrical parameters such as size, orientation and location of individual hydrides, interaction between adjacent hydrides. The paper also presents fracture analyses for some different and representative multi-hydride configurations. The model allows for quite arbitrary crack configurations and can therefore be used to assess realistic hydride configurations. The mechanism cladding failure is by yielding of ligaments between interacting fractured hydrides. The results show that the integrity can be drastically reduced when several radial hydrides form continuous patterns.
NILSSON Karl-Fredrik;
JAKSIC Nikola;
VRATKO Vokal;
2010-01-13
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
JRC51234
0022-3115,
www.elsevier.com/locate/jnucmat,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC51234,
10.1016/j.jnucmat.2009.10.056,
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