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In an attempt to develop an accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) that can delay the deleterious consequences of loss-of-coolant-accidents (LOCA), multilayer coatings were deposited onto ZIRLO ® coupon substrates by cathodic arc physical vapor deposition (CA-PVD). Coatings were composed of alternating TiN (top) and Ti 1-x Al x N (2-layer, 4-layer, 8-layer and 16-layer) layers. The minimum TiN top coating thickness and coating architecture were optimized for good corrosion and oxidation resistance. Corrosion tests were performed in static pure water at 360 °C and 18.7 MPa for up to 90 days. The optimized coatings showed no spallation/delamination and had a maximum of 6 mg/dm 2 weight gain, which is 6 times smaller than that of a control sample of uncoated ZIRLO ® which showed a weight gain of 40.2 mg/dm 2 . The optimized architecture features a ∼1 μm TiN top layer to prevent boehmite phase formation during corrosion and a TiN/TiAlN 8-layer architecture which provides the best corrosion performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to develop a nuclear fuel cladding that is more tolerant to loss-of-coolant-accidents (LOCA), ceramic coatings were deposited onto a ZIRLO™ 1 1 ZIRLO is a trademark of Westinghouse Electric Co. substrate by cathodic arc physical vapor deposition (CA-PVD). The coatings consisted of either Ti 1 – x Al x N or TiN ceramic monolithic layers with a titanium bond coating layer as the interlayer between the ceramic coating and the ZIRLO™ substrate to improve coating adhesion. Several coating deposition trials were performed investigating the effects of bond coating thickness (200–800 nm), ceramic coating thickness (4, 8 and 12 μm), substrate surface roughness prior to deposition, and select coating deposition processing parameters, such as nitrogen partial pressure and substrate bias, in order to optimize the coating durability in a corrosion environment. Corrosion tests were performed in static pure water at 360 °C and saturation pressure (18.7 MPa) for 3 days. The optimized nitride-based ceramic coatings survived the autoclave test exposure showing very low weight gain of 1–5 mg/dm 2 compared to the uncoated ZIRLO™ samples which showed an average weight gain of 14.4 mg/dm 2 . Post-corrosion exposure analytical characterization showed that aluminum depletion occurred in the TiAlN coated samples during the autoclave corrosion test, which led to the formation of the boehmite phase that degraded the corrosion durability of some of the TiAlN samples. However, by eliminating the aluminum content and depositing TiN, the boehmite phase was prevented from forming. Best results in TiAlN coated samples were obtained with 600 nm Ti bond coating thickness, 12 µm coating thickness and 0.25 µm substrate surface roughness (E14). Results are discussed in terms of the capability of TiN and Ti 1 – x Al x N coatings to improve the high temperature corrosion resistance and oxidation resistance of zirconium alloy cladding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]