The work is devoted to the study of the laws of the formation of a hydride rim in E110 zirconium alloy claddings during gas-phase hydrogenation. The problem of hydrogen penetration and accumulation and the subsequent formation of hydrides in the volume of zirconium cladding tubes of water-cooled power reactors remain relevant. The formation of brittle hydrides in a zirconium matrix firstly, leads to a significant change in the mechanical properties, and secondly, can cause the destruction of the claddings by the mechanism of delayed hydride cracking. The degree of the hydride’s effect on the mechanical properties of zirconium cladding is mainly determined by the features of the hydride’s distribution and orientation. The problem of hydride rim formation in zirconium alloys with niobium is quite new and poorly studied. Therefore, the study of hydride rim formation in Russian zirconium alloy is important and necessary for predicting the behavior of claddings during the formation of the hydride rim.

This paper describes the methodology for conducting experiments to study hydrogen diffusion through metal membranes using a specially designed diffusion chamber of an automated gas reaction controller complex. This complex allows experiments to study hydrogen diffusion with the following parameters: the inlet hydrogen pressure is up to 50 atmospheres, and the temperature in the chamber is from 30 °C to 1000 °C. The size of the samples is limited to a diameter of 10 mm and a thickness of 100 μm. The method for calculating the diffusion coefficient based on the Fick equation is also described. When studying hydrogen diffusion through a sample of Zr–1Nb alloy with nickel film deposited at the temperature of 550 °C, it was noted that phase transformations can be observed on the diffusion curve.

This work is devoted to studying the accumulation of hydrogen in titanium coatings to use a completely new concept of hydrogen accumulators based on a system of easily replaceable cartridges. Modern hydrogen accumulators based on magnesium powder have several problems associated with uneven heating during hydrogen desorption. Increasing the efficiency of hydrogen accumulators and the possibility of their reuse and/or repair remains a topical problem. For the analysis of the microstructure of the received titanium coatings, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used, the structural-phase state was studied using x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The coatings were hydrogenation by gas-phase saturation at 450–550 °C. Increased film thickness reduced the storage capacity of coatings. Besides hydrogenation at 450 °C, 20 µm of titanium coatings accumulated 3.96 wt.%, while 80 µm of coatings accumulated 3.98 wt.%. The chemical composition of the coatings before and after the hydrogenation was controlled using glow-discharge optical emission spectroscopy.

In this article, we conduct research on the effect of corrosion tests on the hydrogen diffusion process in gas steel in electrochemical permeability tests. This tests show that a long corrosion test time reduces the hydrogen diffusion coefficient by an order of magnitude, indicating the formation of aging defects in the steel. During operation, the diffusion coefficient decreases by two orders of magnitude, which also indicates the formation of a large number of defects in the steel. Consequently, based on the change in the diffusion coefficient in the material, it is possible to assess the degree of material failure.