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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
G. P. Sabol, S. G. McDonald
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 1977 | Pages 83-90
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27007
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Alloying additions of 0.5 and 1.0 wt% niobium, respectively, have been added to Zircaloy-4 in an attempt to improve its high-temperature corrosion resistance. Ingots of these modified alloys were fabricated to a 0.76-mm-thick sheet via a processing sequence compatible with commercial tubing production and were given one of four different final anneals. Subsequent testing indicated that the niobium additions had little or no effect on corrosion resistance in 360°C water. In 427°C steam, however, the 0.5%-niobium addition provided increased resistance to spalling, while the 1.0%-niobium addition decreased both cumulative weight gains and post-transition corrosion rates. The weight gains exhibited by the 0.5%-niobium alloy were relatively insensitive to final heat treatment, whereas the 1.0%-niobium alloy suffered a degradation in properties as the extent of the final anneal increased. These trends in corrosion performance were subsequently correlated with the second-phase particle size distributions present in the alloys, the best performance being obtained when the mean particle diameter was <400 to 500 Å. It was concluded that both niobium additions improved the corrosion performance of Zircaloy-4 at elevated temperatures, but that the best performance was obtained at the 1.0-wt%-niobium level.