The role of chemical free energy and elastic strain in the nucleation of zirconium hydride

In this work a combination of synchrotron X-ray diffraction and thermodynamic modelling has been used to study the dissolution and precipitation of zirconium hydride in α-Zr establishing the role of elastic misfit strain and chemical free energy in the α → α + δ phase transformation. The nucleation of zirconium hydride is dominated by the chemical free energy where the chemical driving force for hydride precipitation is proportional to the terminal-solid solubility for precipitation and can be predicted by a function that is analogous to the universal nucleation parameter for the bainite transformation in ferrous alloys. The terminal-solid solubility for precipitation was found to be kinetically limited ⩾287 °C at a cooling rate of 5 °C min−1 or greater. The terminal solubilities were established using an offset method applied to the lattice strain data where a resolution of ∼10 wppm H can be achieved in the 〈c〉-direction. This is aided by the introduction of intra-granular strains in the 〈c〉-direction during cooling as a result of the thermal expansion anisotropy which increases the anisotropy associated with the misfitting H atoms within the α-Zr lattice.