Texture measurement in Zr-2.5%Nb pressure tubes for pressurized heavy water reactors

Preferred orientation or crystallographic texture of Zr-2.5%Nb pressure tubes for a pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) affects all the critical in-reactor properties. The preferred orientation has to be measured to standardize the process route for getting the desired in-reactor properties. The quantitative determination involves determination of the complete pole figure and calculation of Kearns parameters from the pole figure data. Independently, neither the X-ray reflection nor the X-ray transmission technique can provide the full pole figure data. The literature reports only partial pole figures. Quantification of texture based on partial pole figures may lead to errors in estimation. For a complete pole figure determination, it is required to merge the data from both the reflection and the transmission techniques. This requires a special test setup that can combine the pole figure data obtained from the two techniques. In this paper, a methodology for determination of the complete pole figure with quantitative texture parameters for Zr-2.5%Nb pressure tubes is reported