Ultrasonic testing of the fracture toughness of Zr-Nb pressure tubes

Bulk elastic properties were measured, using ultrasound, in thickness and circumferential directions of 13 Zr-Nb pressure tubes samples from CANDU nuclear reactors in the hope of finding a nondestructive means to evaluate fracture toughness. The longitudinal wave velocity in the thickness direction are found especially sensitive to changes in the α-Zr single-crystal c axis orientation distribution. This is verified by comparing measured values to predictions based on neutron diffraction measurements of the crystallographic orientation distribution and on the single-crystal elastic constants of α-Zr. Moreover, those velocities most sensitive to texture correlate best with the crack growth toughness of the pressure tubes. This led to the discovery of a correlation between the degree of alignment of the crystallographic c axes along the tube circumferential direction and crack growth toughness. The better is the alignment, the lower is crack growth toughness. Because of the measurement simplicity, the ultrasonic technique could be developed into a rugged industrial sensor