Determination of fracture strength of δ-zirconium hydrides embedded in zirconium matrix at high temperatures

The fracture strength of δ-zirconium hydrides embedded in a zirconium matrix was determined at temperatures between 25 °C and 250 °C by ring tensile tests using Zircaloy-2 tubes. Essentially all of the present hydrides in the tubes were re-oriented in the radial direction by a temperature cycling treatment and then tensile stress was applied perpendicular to the hydrides to ensure that brittle fracture would occur at the hydrides. The hydrides failed in a brittle manner below 100 °C where-as the zirconium matrix itself underwent ductile fracture without hydride cracking at temperatures above 200 °C under plane stress condition. Brittle fracture of the hydrides continued to occur at temperatures up to 250 °C under plane strain condition, suggesting that the upper limit temperature for hydride fracture, Tupper, was raised by the triaxial stress state under the plane strain condition. The apparent fracture strength of the hydrides, σhydridef, was determined at temperatures below Tupper from the measured fracture strength of the tubes, making a correction for the compressive transformation stress in the hydrides. σhydridef was about 710 MPa at temperatures between 25 °C and 250 °C at both plane stress and plane strain conditions. The temperature dependency was very small in this temperature range. Tupper was almost equivalent to the cross-over temperature between σhydridef and the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), which suggests that, at temperatures above Tupper, the zirconium matrix would undergo ductile fracture before the stress in the hydride is raised above σhydridef, since UTS is smaller than σhydridef.