Microstructural studies on lattice imperfections in deformed zirconium-base alloys by x-ray diffraction
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I. INTRODUCTION
ZIRCONIUM alloys are used extensively in nuclear industry because of their much lower neutron absorption cross section than other commercially available structural materials.[1] Among these alloys, ZIRCALOY-2* and Zr-2.5
the detailed Fourier line shape analysis of various faultunaffected and fault-affected reflections. The results have been compared with the earlier observations on pure zirconium. The observations made from these analyses are also compared with the mechanical properties of these materials and a correlation has been sought.
*ZIRCALOY-2 and ZIRLO are trademarks of Westinghouse Electric Company, Pittsburgh, PA.
pct Nb find extensive use as fuel cladding tubes and coolant tubes, respectively, in power reactors. Another zirconiumbase tin, niobium, iron alloy, commonly known as ZIRLO,* developed as a candidate material for fuel cladding tube has also been included in this study. These materials are used inside the reactor in cold-worked and heat-treated conditions.[2] The initial microstructure of the cladding and coolant tubes are of great concern from the point of view of irradiation-induced creep and irradiation-induced growth in these alloys used inside the reactors.[3,4,5] It is well known that irradiation-induced dimensional changes can impose significant design limitations and can limit the life expectancy of the reactor. The preirradiation dislocation network is thought to contribute to irradiation growth at high fluences.[6] The irradiation growth increases as the degree of cold work increases[7,8] and has been reported to vary with the dislocation density. X-ray diffraction line profile analysis has been widely applied for the evaluation of microstructural parameters in different deformed metals and alloy system.[9,10] In the present investigation, the microstructural parameters such as coherently scattering domain size, microstrains within the domains, stacking faults, and dislocation densities of these deformed zirconium-base alloys have been determined from
P. MUKHERJEE, P. BARAT, S.K. BANDYOPADHYAY, and PINTU SEN, Scientists, are with the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Calcutta 700 064, India. S.K. CHATTOPADHYAY, Lecturer in Metallurgy, S.K. CHATTERJEE, Assistant Professor in Physics, and A.K. MEIKAP, Lecturer in Physics, are with R.E. College, Durgapur 713 209, India. M.K. MITRA, Professor in Metallurgy, is with Jadavpur University, Calcutta 700 032, India. Manuscript submitted March 8, 1999. METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS A
II. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE AND METHOD OF ANALYSIS The alloy ingots were prepared by double vacuum arc melting followed by b quenching. The ingots were hot extruded at 800 8C and then air cooled. The flat diffractometer samples from the powders obtained by careful handfiling of the homogenized alloy ingots have been prepared by making briquettes in standard sample holders using solution of canada balsam in xylene as binder.[11,12] X-ray diffraction profiles have been recorded using a PHILIPS* PW *PHILIPS is a trademark of Philips Elect
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