Influence of microstructure on the thermal creep behaviour of zirconium alloys: experimental analysis and implementation of homogenization approaches

Zirconium alloys widely used in the nuclear industry can present thermomechanical variability of their behavior (especially for thermal creep) as a function of their microstructure. To have a better control of the mechanical behavior of these alloys and also to take into account the possible evolution of their fabrication process (chemical composition, thermal treatments,... ), it is important to have a modeling tool which help us to describe the relationship between the microstructure and the macroscopic behavior. This study contributes to establish a predictive modelling, based on an experimental analysis coupled with a homogenization approach of the thermal creep behavior of Zr alloys. The experimental analysis of the crystallographic texture effect for Zircaloy-4 alloys shows how the strain rate and stress exponent of the different glide systems are anisotropic. Transmission Electronic Microscopy analysis have been undertaken in order to determine the link between the texture and the activated slip system considering various mechanical tests (Ioading paths). The experimental analysis for Zr-Nb-1%-O bring to evidence the solid solution effect of Nb on the hardening of this alloy and the weak effect of the precipitates distribution on thermal creep behavior. An elasto-viscoplastic micromechanical modelling has been developed taking into account the microstructure effects on the macroscopic behavior of Zr alloys. The 'quasi-elastic' approximate of the self consistent scheme based on the affine formulation is proposed and compared with others and earlier formulations. The accuracy of this formulation for our study is demonstrated, as well as the from the scale transition point of view and the simple numerical resolution. A good agreement is found for the description of thermal creep behavior of Zircaloy-4 and Zr-Nb-1%-O alloys. The analysis of the results at a local scale (especially slip system secondary activities) gives the current limit for the description of the scale transition. Ways of improvement taking into account intra-phase heterogeneity of the mechanical field to predict the effective behavior are proposed. (author)