Impact of high dose Kr⁺ ion irradiation on the corrosion behavior and microstructure of Zircaloy-4

In order to investigate the ion irradiation effect on the corrosion behavior and microstructure of Zircaloy-4, the Zircaloy-4 film were prepared by electron beam deposition on the Zircaloy-4 specimen surface and irradiated by Kr ions using an accelerator at an energy of 300 keV with the dose from 1×10¹⁵ to 3×10¹⁶ ions/cm². The post-irradiation corrosion tests were conducted to rank the corrosion resistance of the resulting specimens by potentiodynamic polarization curve measurements in a 0.5 mol/L H₂SO₄ water solution at room temperature. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was employed to examine the microstructural change in the surface. The potentiodynamic tests show that with the irradiation dose increasing, the passive current density, closely related to the surface corrosion resistance, decreases firstly and increases subsequently. The mechanism of the corrosion behavior transformation is due to the amorphous phase formation firstly and the amorphous phase destruction and the polycrystalline structure formation in the irradiated surface subsequently.