Assessing Manufacturability of the Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) 14YWT Alloy Fuel Cladding Tube Using SolidStir™ Technology

The 14YWT (Fe–14Cr–3W–0.4Ti–0.3Y2O3 (wt.%)) alloy is a potential candidate material for fabricating fuel cladding tubesFuel cladding tube and other structural components to be used in next-generation advanced nuclear reactors. Due to inherent limitations of current processing routes, this research explored a new variant of friction stir processingFriction stir processing (FSP), commercially referred to as SolidStir™ Extrusion (patent pending) technology from Enabled Engineering to consolidate and extrude 14YWT powder into a fuel cladding tubeFuel cladding tube. Several single-layer and multiple-layer consolidation experiments were carried out in an Inconel 625 die to determine the suitable processing parameters for SolidStir™SolidStir extrusion of the 14YWT alloyODS 14YWT alloy cladding tube. With these processing parameters, a 16–18 mm long tube of the 14YWT alloy with no visible defects was successfully extruded using this novel technology. Microstructural characterizationCharacterization results obtained using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, electron backscatter diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy will be presented.