Quantification and local distribution of hydrogen within Zircaloy-4 PWR nuclear fuel cladding tubes at the nuclear microprobe of the Pierre Süe Laboratory from μ-ERDA

Hydrogen content and its distribution in in-core materials of nuclear plants are known to have a strong influence on their behaviour, especially on their mechanical properties but also on their corrosion resistance. This point has to be largely investigated in the case of the nuclear fuel cladding (Zr based alloys) of pressurized water reactors (PWR).Two situations have been considered here, with regards to the hydrogen content and its spatial distribution within the thickness of the tubes:(1)Irradiated fuel cladding tubes after a nominal period under working conditions in a PWR core.(2)Non-irradiated fuel cladding previously exposed to conditions representative of an hypothetical “loss of coolant accident” scenario (LOCA).As far as micrometric distributions of H were required, μ-ERDA has been performed at the nuclear microprobe of the Pierre Süe Laboratory. This facility is fitted with two beam lines. In the first one, used for non-active sample analysis, the μ-ERDA configuration has been improved to reduce the limits of detection and the reliability of the results. The second one offers the unique feature of being dedicated to radioactive samples. We will present the nuclear microprobe and emphasize on the μ-ERDA configuration of the two beam lines. We will illustrate the performance of the setup by describing the results obtained for Zircaloy-4 cladding both on non-irradiated and irradiated samples.