Swelling and irradiation creep of neutron irradiated 316Ti and 15-15Ti steels

The global behavior, the swelling and irradiation creep resistances of cold worked 316Ti and 15-15Ti, two variants of austenitic steels in use as core component materials of the French fast reactors, are compared. The 15-15Ti leads to a significant improvement due to an increase in the incubation dose swelling. The same phenomena observed on 316Ti are found on 15-15Ti. All species without fuel like samples, wrappers or empty clad swell and creep less than fuel pin cladding irradiated in the same conditions. To explain the swelling difference, as for 316Ti, thermal gradient is also invoked but the irradiation creep difference is not yet clearly understood. To predict the behavior of clads it is indispensable to study the species themselves and to use specific rules. All results confirm the good behavior of 15-15Ti, the best behavior being obtained with the 1% Si doped version irradiated up to 115 dpa