Investigating local dissolution of zirconium hydrides under elastic stress

Zirconium-based nuclear fuel cladding tubes envelop nuclear fuel pellets and thus are part of fuel rods used in nuclear power plants.Because the cladding takes up hydrogen during operation of nuclear power plants, the hydrogen distribution within the material under the influence of stress shall be investigated in-situ by means of neutron imaging.
We want to in-situ monitor local hydride dissolution processes within zirconium samples under several temperature conditions (375-450°C) and applied tensile forces. With the KIT's portable INCHAMEL facility samples can be homogeneously heated and stress/strain influences on the local dissolution behaviour of zirconium hydrides in dependence on the hydrogen solubility and the chemical potential of hydrogen can be determined.