Development of non-destructive evaluation methods for degradation of HTGR graphite components

To develop the non-destructive evaluation method for degradation of HTGR graphite components, the applicability of the micro-indentation method to detect residual stress was studied. The fine-grained isotropic graphites IG-110 and IG-430, the candidates for the VHTR, were used. The following results were obtained:(1)The residual stress in a graphite block at the HTTR in-core condition was analyzed. It was suggested that, for the components in the VHTR which would be used at much severer condition, the development of lifetime extension methods is an important subject.(2)The micro-indentation behavior at stress free condition was investigated with some indenters. The spherical indenter R0.5 mm was selected to detect the specimen surface condition sensitively. The indentation load of 5 and 10 N was selected to avoid the pop-up effect in the loading process.(3)The relationship between the average value of normalized indentation depth and compressive stress of the specimen was expressed by an empirical formula. It would be possible to evaluate the residual stress by the indentation behaviour. It is necessary to assess the variation of data with statistic method and it is the subject of future study.