A computer model for hydride blister growth in zirconium alloys

The failure of a Zircaloy-2 pressure tube in the Pickering unit 2 reactor started at a series of zirconium hydride blisters on the outside of the pressure tube. These blisters resulted from the thermal diffusion of hydrogen to the cooler regions of the pressure tube. In this report the physics of thermal diffusion of hydrogen in zirconium is reviewed and a computer model for blister growth in two-dimensional Cartesian geometry is described. The model is used to show that the blister-growth rate in a two-phase zirconium/zirconium-hydride region does not depend on the initial hydrogen concentration nor on the hydrogen pick-up rate, and that for a fixed far-field temperature there is an optimum pressure-type/calandria-tube contact temperature for growing blisters. The model described here can also be used to study large-scale effects, such as hydrogen-depletion zones around hydride blisters