FRACTURE RESISTANCE OF “TRANSITION” AREA IN THREE-LAYER STEEL/VANADIUM ALLOY/STEEL COMPOSITE AFTER THERMOMECHANICAL TREATMENT

The creation of new structural materials for cladding tubes  of fast neutron reactors is an urgent task of modern nuclear power  engineering. A three-layer radiation-resistant and corrosion-resistant material based on vanadium alloy and stainless steel, intended  for work under extreme conditions (high temperatures, radiation  and aggressive environment) of operation of fast neutron reactor  cladding tubes has been developed in recent years. The most important aspect determining the operability of this material during  operation is the quality of the joining of different materials layers  among themselves, determined by the modes of thermomechanical treatment. The effect of the annealing on the chemical composition, structure, and fracture resistance of the “steel/vanadium  alloy” interface in the steel/vanadium alloy/steel three-layer tube,  obtained by hot co-extrusion of three-layer tube billet at 1100  °C  was studied. The 20Kh13 (AISI 420 type) steel for the outer layers and V – 4Ti – 4Cr vanadium alloy for the core were used as the  components of the tube. The structure and chemical composition  in the layer joining zone were studied using the optical microscopy and electron microscopy with X-ray microspectral analysis.  The fracture resistance of the “steel/vanadium alloy” interface was  evaluated by a compression test of a three-layer ring sample with  notch using an acoustic emission (AE) measurement. It is shown  that after co-extrusion a “transition” area of diffusion interaction  having a variable chemical composition with a width of 10–15 μm  is formed between vanadium alloy and steel, which represents the  continuous series of solid solutions, without precipitation of brittle  phases, providing a strong bonding between vanadium alloy and  steel in the three-layer material. No voids, delaminations or defects were detected at the “steel/vanadium alloy” interface. However, a  crack is formed in the steel layer during the compression tests of  the notched semi-ring three-layer samples after hot co-extrusion.  Annealing favorably influences the formation of the “transition”  area due to the increase in the width of the diffusion interaction  area. No cracks or delaminations at the boundary between steel and  vanadium layers were observed in the three-layer tube samples after annealing, and the three-layer material behaves like a monolith  material during testing.