A novel approach for manufacturing oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steel cladding tubes using cold spray technology

A novel fabrication method of oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steel cladding tubes for advanced fast reactors has been investigated using the cold spray powder-based materials deposition process. Cold spraying has the potential advantage for rapidly fabricating ODS cladding tubes in comparison with the conventional multi-step extrusion process. A gas atomized spherical 14YWT (Fe-14%Cr, 3%W, 0.4%Ti, 0.2%Y, 0.01%O) powder was sprayed on a rotating cylindrical 6061-T6 aluminum mandrel using nitrogen as the propellant gas. The powder lacked the oxygen content needed to precipitate the nanoclusters in ODS steel, therefore this work was intended to serve as a proof-of-concept study to demonstrate that free-standing steel cladding tubes with prototypical ODS composition could be manufactured using the cold spray process. The spray process produced an approximately 1-mm thick, dense 14YWT deposit on the aluminum-alloy tube. After surface polishing of the 14YWT deposit to obtain desired cladding thickness and surface roughness, the aluminum-alloy mandrel was dissolved in an alkaline medium to leave behind a free-standing ODS tube. The as-fabricated cladding tube was annealed at 1000 °C for 1 h in an argon atmosphere to improve the overall mechanical properties of the cladding.