Instrumented Tooling for Optimization of Cold Drawing Parameters in Zircaloy Tube Fabrication.

摘要

Under the Department of Energy/Westinghouse Hanford Company-sponsored Pressure Tube Cold Work Simulation Project, Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) provided the pressure tube development engineering and metalworking to develop process parameters for draw sizing Zircaloy pressure tube extrusions using reduced-sized, extruded Zircaloy surrogate tubes. The extruded surrogate tube was sized to be drawable on our 50,000-pound drawbench while simulating actual pressure tube processing characteristic (strain ratio and cold working) that would develop the desired crystalline structure in the tube wall. Our objectives were (1) to assist our customers in initial selection of draw tooling and lubrications; and (2) to identify and solve tube drawing problems before the customer installed a 250,000-pound drawbench and began full-sized pressure tube drawing development. 2 refs., 7 figs.