Blast and tensile properties of tantalum/niobium lined SiC/SiC composite tubes for nuclear cladding

The mechanical performances such as tensile strength and blast property of metal lined SiC/SiC composite cladding tubes were investigated. Nb or Ta was selected as liner material, and the SiC/SiC composite layer was fabricated by winding and different precursor impregnation and pyrolysis (PIP) processes. The tensile strengths of different tube samples were measured at room temperature (RT) and 1200 °C, respectively. The blast property was investigated through the maximum water pressure of tubes. And the fracture microstructures were observed by SEM. The highest tensile strength at RT was 150.7 MPa. The blast strength was enhanced with the PIP process increasing from 1 to 4 cycles and the tube of 4 PIP cycles had the highest water pressure of 34.7 MPa. Compared with the metal tubes, the multi-layer structure improved tensile and blast properties significantly. The different processes such as PIP cycles and pyrolytic carbon (PyC) coating were important factors to enhance the mechanical performances of SiC/SiC-based tubes. However, the retention rate of tensile strength was only 18.5% at 1200 °C.