Irradiation characteristics of metal-based accident resistant fuel cladding

Abstract

Recently, stainless steel is being developed to replace the zirconium alloy that caused the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The newly developed cladding require various properties such as high strength and ductility, oxidation resistance, and corrosion resistance. In order to investigate the radiation resistance, which is an important requirement of the cladding material, the properties should be measured by irradiating neutron as in the reactor core. However, neutron studies on all the specimens under development have many limitations. Therefore, in this study, we propose neutron irradiation preliminary experiment by proton irradiation, using phase analysis with SEM and TEM, and physical property measurement through nanoindentation.