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Improving the Quantification of Deuterium in Zirconium Alloy Atom Probe Tomography Data Using Existing Analysis Methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2021

Megan E. Jones Open the ORCID record for Megan E. Jones [Opens in a new window] ,
Andrew J. London ,
Andrew J. Breen Open the ORCID record for Andrew J. Breen [Opens in a new window] ,
Paul D. Styman ,
Shyam Sikotra ,
Michael P. Moody  and
Daniel Haley
Megan E. Jones*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
Andrew J. London
Affiliation:
UK Atomic Energy Authority, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 3DB, UK
Andrew J. Breen
Affiliation:
Australian Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, Max-Planck-Straße 1, Düsseldorf, Germany
Paul D. Styman
Affiliation:
National Nuclear Laboratory, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon OX14 3DB, UK
Shyam Sikotra
Affiliation:
Rolls-Royce Plc, PO Box 2000, Raynesway, Derby DE21 7XX, UK
Michael P. Moody
Affiliation:
Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
Daniel Haley
Affiliation:
Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
*
*Corresponding author: Megan E. Jones, E-mail: megan.jones2@materials.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

Zirconium alloys are common fuel claddings in nuclear fission reactors and are susceptible to the effects of hydrogen embrittlement. There is a need to be able to detect and image hydrogen at the atomic scale to gain the experimental evidence necessary to fully understand hydrogen embrittlement. Through the use of deuterium tracers, atom probe tomography (APT) is able to detect and spatially locate hydrogen at the atomic scale. Previous works have highlighted issues with quantifying deuterium concentrations using APT due to complex peak overlaps in the mass-to-charge-state ratio spectrum between molecular hydrogen and deuterium (H2 and D). In this work, we use new methods to analyze historic and simulated atom probe data, by applying currently available data analysis tools, to optimize solving peak overlaps to improve the quantification of deuterium. This method has been applied to literature data to quantify the deuterium concentrations in a concentration line profile across an α-Zr/deuteride interface.

Keywords

atom probe tomographydeuteriumhydrogen embrittlementnuclear materialspeak overlapsquantificationzirconium alloys
Type
Detection of Hydrogen
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , August 2022 , pp. 1245 - 1254
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Microscopy Society of America

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