Evaluation of Two Passes Cold Pilgering Property for PLUS7TM Guide Thimble and Instrumentation Tubing

The thermo-mechanical property of zirconium alloy tube is well known to be influenced by pilgering pass schedule and its tooling; thus the control of its microstructure and mechanical property in the final tube production stage for nuclear fuel applications is a major concern of tube manufacture. To fabricate final tube, the 3 passes pilgering is applied in general by using TREX(Tube Reduced EXtrusion), 63.5mm outer diameter(OD), in KEPCO NF and most of Zr tube manufacturing companies. They are also taking big efforts to reduce pilgering step for the sake of increasing the efficiency of production in the forming stage of tube. The objective of this study is to develop two passes of pilgering schedule from the conventional three passes of pilgering schedule for manufacturing the Guide Thimble and Instrumentation tube conforming to specification, which are newly developing component for the advanced nuclear fuel assembly in KEPCO NF. CSR, hydride orientation, and structural integrity are well conformed to the desired targets so it is expected that both die and mandrel were newly designed for the PLUS7TM guide thimble and instrumentation tube with higher Q factor for two passes of pilgering at 50LC and 25LC pilger machine, instead of three passes of pilgering, are able to be applicable to this design of fuel component. If developed two passes pilgering is applied to current manufacturing process, it would improve not only productivity but also yield rate by reducing 3 steps(pilgering, heat-treatment, pickiling and cleaning) of manufacturing process. But additional tests(including in-pile test) should be performed in order to evaluate integrity in reactor