Aspects of welding of zircaloy thin tube to end plugin the experimental welding facility of fuel element fabrication laboratory

摘要

The work was achieved within the scope of developing egyptian nuclear fuel fabrication laboratory in inshas. It showed the results of developing a welding facility for performing a qualified zircaloy-2 and 4 thin tubes to end weld joints. The welding chamber design was developed to get qualified weld for both PWR and CANDU fuel rod configurations. Experimental works for optimizing the welding parameters of tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding and electron beam (EB) welding processes were achieved. The ld penetration deeper than the wall tube thickness can be obtained for qualified end plug weld joints. It recommended to use steel compensating block for radiographic inspection of end plug weld joints. The predominate defects that can be expected in end plug weld joints, are lack of penetration and cavity. The microstructure of the fusion zone and heat affected zones are Widmanstaetten structure and its grain size is drastically sensible to the heat generation and removal of arc welding. 16 figs.