Specific Heat Capacity of Alloy 690 for Simulating Neutron Irradiation

The KAERI(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) is developing new type of nuclear reactor, so called 'SMART'(System Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor) which has many features of small power and system integrated modular type. Alloy 690 was selected as the candidate material for the heat exchanger tube of the steam generator of SMART. The SMART R and D is now facing the stage of engineering verification and approval of standard design to apply to DEMO reactors. Therefore, the material performance under the relevant environment is required to be evaluated. The important material performance issues are mechanical properties i.e. (fracture toughness, tensile and hardness) and thermal properties i.e. (thermal diffusivity, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity) for which the engineering database is necessary to design a steam generator. However, the neutron post irradiation characteristics of the alloy 690 are barely known. As a result, PIE(Post Irradiation Examination) of thermal properties are planed and performed successfully. But specific heat capacity measurement is not performed because of not having proper test system for irradiated materials. Therefore in order to verify the effect of neutron irradiation for alloy 690, simulation method is adopted. In general, high energy neutron bombardment in material bring about lattice defects i.e. void, pore and dislocation. Dominant factor to impact to heat capacity is mainly dislocation in material. Therefore, simulation of neutron irradiation is devised by material rolling method in order to make artificial dislocation in alloy 690 as same effect of neutron irradiation. After preparing test specimens, heat capacity measurements are performed and results are compared with rolled materials and un-rolled materials to verify the effect of neutron irradiation simulation. Main interest of simulation is that heat capacity value is changed by neutron irradiation