Interlaboratories Tests of Textures of Zircaloy‐4 Tubes. Part 1: Pole Figure Measurements and Calculation of Kearns Coefficients

Abstract

Interlaboratories tests of textures initiated by ZIRCOTUBE, a manufacturer of zircaloy tubes and FRAGEMA, a designer, have been organized. The study focuses on cladding tubes in the cold worked stress relieved state and on thimble tubes, standard section and reduced section, in the fully annealed state. The first part of the tests consists in measuring incomplete pole figures in reflection, in drawing the (RD, LD) and (RD, TD) linear sections of the pole figure (00.2) and in calculating the ƒ R , ƒ T , ƒ L Kearns coefficients relative to the pole figure (00.2). The synthesis of the reports presented by the three industrial teams and by two university teams, which have taken part in the interlaboratories tests, shows that the results are rather clustered, the remaining differences could have been brought about by various preparations of samples and by various adjustments of the measuring devices.This study will be completed by three‐dimensional analyses of texture using programs developed or purchased by the different laboratories (Second part).