Graphite high temperature creep rigs

A description is given of two high temperature tensile creep rigs, for irradiating pyrocarbon and graphite specimens. PIRITHOOS is a creep rig operating at 11000C and utilizing three in line pyrocarbon specimens. These have different cross sections giving three stress values. Unstressed specimens are placed close to the tensile ones. Dimensional measurements: length, thickness, width are made in hot cells, after each reactor shut down. FLACH is a graphite creep rig allowing continuous length measurement to be made in comparison with the length of two reference specimens. These rigs consist of two main parts: the creep capsule including: specimens, loading bellows, microwave measuring apparatus, which is introduced into a standard gas gap furnace regulating the temperature by gas mixture and electrical heating