A Review of Graphite Irradiation Creep Data from the "OC-Series" of Experiments

The OC-Series graphite irradiation creep experiments were conducted in the early 1970s in the Oak Ridge Research Reactor (ORR) at ORNL. The OC Series consisted of 5 experiments, Capsules 1, 3 and 5 were irradiated at 900°C and Capsules 2 and 4 were irradiated at 600°C. Each capsule contained four columns of specimens, two loaded in compression and two un-loaded. The loaded columns had specimens of different diameter to generate two stress levels, 13.8 MPa and 20.7 MPa. Some of the data from these experiments were presented in extended abstracts at a Carbon Conference (Kennedy et al, 1977: Kennedy and Eatherly, 1979). The data presented some challenges to the accepted approach to irradiation induced creep in graphite adopted in the UK, specifically lateral creep strain behaviour and the effect of irradiation induced creep strain on material properties, e.g. CTE and Poisson’s Ratio. A recent review of irradiation induced creep (Davies & Bradford, 2004) included an anlaysis of the available OC-series data (Mobasheran, 1990) and led to a request to ORNL for an examination of the original OC-Series dataset. An initial search of the ORNL archive revealed additional data from the OC-Series experiment including previously unknown irradiation annealing experiments. This reportmore » presents a re-analysis of the available data from the OC-Series archive.« less