Technical Development for IASCC Irradiation Experiments at the JMTR

Irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) is considered to be one of the key issues from a viewpoint of the life management of core components in the aged Light Water Reactors (LWRs). To simulate IASCC behavior by the in-pile IASCC experiment or post-irradiation experiment (PIE), it is necessary to irradiate specimens up to a neutron fluence that is higher than the so-called IASCC threshold fluence in a test reactor. There are, however, some technical hurdles to overcome for the experiments. For the in-pile IASCC test, techniques assembling pre-irradiated specimens into an in-pile test capsule in a hot cell by remote handling are necessary, and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) developed the techniques for the in-pile test to be carried out in the Japan Material Testing Reactor (JMTR). To examine crack growth and crack initiation behaviors under neutron irradiation, pre-irradiated specimens were relocated from pre-irradiation capsules to an in-pile capsule. Hence, a remote welding machine has been newly developed and welding work for inner and outer tubes of capsule are carried out with rotating of the capsule. The other hurdle is the material integrity of the capsule of the capsule housing for a long term irradiation. Since the changes in microstructure, micro chemistry and mechanical properties of materials increase with neutron fluence, the integrity for capsules of long irradiation period was evaluated by tensile tests in the air and slow strain rate test (SSRT) in oxygenated water. Specimens were obtained from the outer tubes of capsule irradiated to 1.0–3.9 × 10²⁶ n/m² (E> 1 MeV) previously. Elongation more than 15% in tensile test at 423 K was confirmed and no IGSCC fraction was shown in SSRT at 423 K which was estimated as temperature at the outer tubes of the capsule under irradiation.