Dataset for: The role of hydrides and precipitates on the strain localisation behaviour in a zirconium alloy

This is the dataset used in the following publication: 

R. Thomas, D. Lunt, M.D. Atkinson, J. Quinta da Fonseca, M. Preuss, P. Honniball, P. Frankel, The role of hydrides and precipitates on the strain localisation behaviour in a zirconium alloy, Acta Materialia, 2023, 119327, ISSN 1359-6454, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2023.119327.

Contained in this dataset are:

A Jupyter notebook which uses the open-source DefDAP Python package (https://github.com/MechMicroMan/DefDAP) to open enclosed HRDIC, EBSD and image data for hydrides Zircaloy-4 deformed to ~3% strain, along the rolling direction.

Please use the 'master' version of DefDAP: https://github.com/MechMicroMan/DefDAP/tree/51074e158b0131c69358ddf7eee319e41cf582ca

Publication abstract:

In service, zirconium alloys undergo aqueous corrosion and hydrogen is absorbed, which can lead to the formation of hydrides. Hydrides, as well as the precipitates in zirconium alloys, affect the mechanical performance, though their contribution to plasticity is not yet understood. This study uses a combination of high-resolution digital image correlation and electron backscatter diffraction to quantify the strain partitioning between the different phases. Following uniaxial tensile deformation, it was found that the average strain within the δ-ZrH and Zr(Fe,Cr)2 was lower than in the α-Zr. Shear bands in the α-Zr matrix were observed to interact with small and medium sized hydride in multiple ways, such as terminating at the interface, cracking and shear around the interface or causing plastic slip in the hydride. Large hydrides showed a particularly detrimental effect on deformation behaviour, with large strain localisations and cracking observed at interfaces, which are typically precursors to failure. In contrast, the Zr(Fe,Cr)2precipitates remained undeformed and forced the expected metal-matrix lattice rotation. The importance of these observations in context of fuel cladding integrity is discussed.