Corrosion and Mechanical Properties of HANA-6 Strip

The Zircaloy-4, one of zirconium alloys, has been used as a nuclear fuel and structural material because it has a satisfactory mechanical strength and corrosion resistance. As in many plants it was attempted to increase their discharge burn-up and power level, the development of new zirconium alloys for a high burn-up fuel material has been required. In response to these needs, in 1997 KAERI started the development of some Zr-based new alloys, called HANA alloys, for high burn-up fuel cladding material and has tested the out-of-pile and in-pile performance of these HANA claddings after manufacturing the claddings with HANA alloys. The sample specimens of the HANA cladding tubes showed a good performance for both corrosion resistance and creep properties at an irradiation test up to 12GWD/MtU in Halden test reactor as well as at various out of- pile tests. It is also scheduled to start the verification test of the in-pile performance of the HANA claddings in a commercial reactor by the end of 2007. KAERI and KNFC are also trying to extend the applicability of these alloys to the spacer grid for PWR nuclear fuel. As one of these attempts, KAERI has tested the properties of HANA-6 strips of 241.3 mm in width, and both 0.457 and 0.667 mm in thickness manufactured with a larger scale in width than a laboratory scale. The same test is scheduled to carry out for HANA-4 strips with a time lag. This paper summarized the results of the corrosion test, tensile test and bending test for the HANA- 6 strips up to now