Irradiation and lithium presence influence on the crystallographic nature of zirconia in the framework of PWR zircaloy 4 fuel cladding corrosion study

The-increasing deterioration of the initially protective zirconia layer is one of the hypotheses which can explain the impairment with time of PWR fuel cladding corrosion. This deterioration could be worsened by irradiation or lithium presence in the oxidizing medium. The aim of this thesis was to underline the influence of those two parameters on zirconia crystallographic nature. We first studied the impact of ionic irradiation on pure, powdery, monoclinic zirconia and oxidation formed zirconia, mainly with X-ray diffraction and Raman microscopy. The high or low energy particles used (Krn+-, Arn+) respectively favored electronic or atomic defaults production. The crystallographic analyses showed that these irradiation have a significant effect on zirconia by inducing nucleation or growth of tetragonal phase. The extent depends on sample nature and particles energy. In all cases, phase transformation is correlated with crystalline parameters, grain size and especially micro-stress changes. The results are consistent with those obtained with 1 to 5 cycles PWR claddings. Therefore, the corrosion acceleration observed in reactor can partly be explained by the stress fields appearance under irradiation, which is particularly detrimental to zirconia layer cohesion. Last, we have underlined that the presence of considerable amounts of lithium in the oxidizing medium ((> 700 ppm) induces the disappearance of the tetragonal zirconia located at the metal/oxide interface and the appearance of a porosity of the dense under layer, which looses its protectiveness. (author)