Tribological behavior of zirconium alloy against stainless steel under different conditions

With a very small neutron cross-section along with excellent mechanical properties, zirconium alloys are generally used as structural and working components of a nuclear reactor's core. Some of these components experience fluid flow-induced vibrations that can result in tribological interaction leading to wear of the components. The present study investigates the tribological response when Zr-2.5Nb is slid against SS-410 to explore the effect of temperature, and other test parameters like sliding duration, sliding frequency, and sliding amplitude. The dominant wear mechanism is adhesive wear at low amplitude, promoting the material transfer of one component to another and tribo-oxide formation. The Coefficient of Friction (COF) is higher at high temperature (260 degrees C) than that at Room Temperature (RT).