Spectral Effects on Stress Relaxation of Inconel X-750 Springs in CANDU® Reactors

Abstract

CANDU reactors have been operating for periods up to about 25 years. During this time there are changes to the nuclear reactor core components that are a function of operating environment and time. It is important to know how the properties of critical core components are likely to change over the life of a reactor and therefore their behaviours are characterised long before the end of the reactor design life. Tests are typically conducted in materials test reactors. The behaviour of a material is often characterised as a function of fast neutron fluence and the expected effect of operating time is established by simply extrapolating as a function of fluence. This may be appropriate when the neutron energy spectrum for the materials test reactor matches closely the neutron spectrum where the component resides in the power reactor. However, in cases where the spectrum is very different one has to convert the accumulated dose into a unit that is common in its effect on the material properties. For many property changes in nuclear reactor cores this unit is displacements per atom (dpa). There are different processes that cause atomic displacements and the main ones have to be included in any dpa calculation in order to accurately predict how a given component will perform. One property that is significantly affected by irradiation is stress. Irradiation-induced stress relaxation is a phenomenon that has been used as a method for studying in-reactor creep. Stress relaxation also results in a loss of tension in springs if these springs are in a reactor core environment. This paper describes the stress relaxation of Inconel X-750 in the National Research Universal (NRU) materials test reactor and relates this to the expected relaxation of springs that are installed in the periphery of CANDU reactors. The results show that spectral effects are particularly significant for certain components at the edge of the CANDU reactor core where the neutron spectrum is changing significantly. The effect of transmutation can also be important in modifying the damage rate. The production of Ni-59 in alloys containing Ni has a significant effect on the amount of radiation damage produced when the thermal neutron flux is high. The effect of gamma radiation is also considered and shown to be small even when the gamma flux is high relative to the neutron flux.