Young’s modulus anisotropy in reactor pressure vessel cladding

In a previous study it was shown that the anisotropy of Young’s modulus in the stainless steel cladding of a reactor pressure vessel could be attributed to the solidification texture of the cladding. Further it was found that annealing the samples to remove the delta phase caused a modulus change but only in some directions. Since the texture was only estimated from X-ray diffraction patterns the moduli, calculated for some principal directions, differed considerably from the measured ones. In the present study, executed on a practically identical cladding, the texture was determined by actual texture measurements. It was found to be close to a fibre texture with 〈0 0 1〉 perpendicular to the cladding plane and the values calculated from it agreed much better with the experimental ones. The annealing effect found in the previous study was shown to be due to surface recrystallization induced by milling damage.