Increase of control rod diameters may occur under Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) operational conditions. This increase constitutes a limitation on the life-time of control rod assemblies and the safety of reactor. In order to understand the contribution of the irradiation to this damage, SIMROD (simulated the irradiated control rod: Silver-indium-cadmium alloy with the tin additive which aim to simulate the effect of irradiation) and non-irradiated control rod are investigated. The density, microstructure, thermal diffusivity, conductivity and steady compressive creep rate have been measured by Archimedes principle method, optical microscope (OM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), laser bombard method and creep testing machine in this work. The results show that the thermal diffusivity and conductivity of SIMROD alloy increases with the increase of temperature as well as the non-irradiated control rod alloy, fcc alloy of Ag-In-Cd will transform to an hcp phase similar to the zeta phase of the silver alloys while the Sn as the additive. In order to understand the creep mechanism of as-cast alloys, the stress exponent n and activation energy Qc are calculated by the data of stress and temperature dependence of steady creep rate. Grain boundary sliding is the rate controlling mechanism for the alloy at the temperature of 300°C and dislocation creep is the rate controlling mechanism for the alloy at the temperatures of 350–400°C, respectively.

Volume Subject Area:
Nuclear Fuel and Materials
Topics:
Alloys, Irradiation (Radiation exposure), Creep, Temperature, Electrical conductivity, Pressurized water reactors, Stress, Thermal conductivity, Thermal diffusivity, Damage, Density, Dislocations, Grain boundaries, Lasers, Machinery, Optical microscopes, Safety, Scanning electron microscopes, Silver, Silver alloys, Temperature effects, Testing, Tin
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