Improvement and prediction technology of the water-side corrosion of zirconium alloy: the developmental tendency

Abstract The cladding material serves as the primary safety barrier in nuclear power plants, and its performance significantly impacts the service life and safety reliability of fuel elements. Zirconium-based alloys (Zr), widely utilized as cladding materials in light water reactors (boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors), face numerous challenges in an environment characterized by increasing fuel consumption, with corrosion being the foremost concern. The corrosion of Zr alloys involves multiple influencing factors, including temperature, chemical environment of water, evolution process of second phases, destruction-regeneration cycle of oxidation films, stress accumulation, volume changes, defect formation, and irradiation effects. This paper provides a comprehensive review on the field of aqueous-side corrosion of Zr alloys while also discussing technical approaches to enhance their corrosion resistance properties and presenting current development status regarding predictive technologies for assessing corrosion behavior along with predicting future trends.