The effect of oxidation-and-quenching process during a LOCA on the behavior of the oxidation and embrittlement of Zircaloy-4 cladding under reheating transients

Two-sided oxidation tests, ring compression tests and semi-integral quench tests on Zircaloy-4 cladding specimens were conducted under temperature transient conditions simulating a post-quench reheat transient in order to evaluate the effect of high-temperature oxidation and quenching during a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) on the behavior of the oxidation and embrittlement of the cladding under a loss of long-term core-cooling condition. Test specimens prepared from non-irradiated Zircaloy-4 cladding tube were oxidized at a temperature between 1173 and 1473 K in steam flow and quenched by soaking the specimen in room temperature water. Re-heating tests were performed on the specimens in steam flow at a temperature between 1173 and 1473 K. The suppression of oxide layer growth and weight gain was observed under certain reheating-after-quenching conditions. Nevertheless, it seemed that the temperature transients including quenching-and-reheating process did not significantly affect the embrittlement of cladding. It was found that the embrittlement behavior of cladding during the temperature transients including quenching-and-reheating process could be dealt with on the basis of the Equivalent Cladding Reacted (ECR) based on the Baker–Just correlation.