Hydrogen-induced microstructure, texture and mechanical property evolutions in a high-pressure torsion processed zirconium alloy

The gaseous hydriding-induced evolutions of the microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of Zircaloy-4 processed by high-pressure torsion (HPT) were assessed. Much δ-ZrH1.66 precipitation at 15 atm (21%) incurred significant hardening of vacuum-annealed HPT samples, and pure ε-ZrH2 obtained at 20 atm showed a superior microhardness of 470 HV0.3 and a low fracture toughness of 0.63 MPa m1/2. The δ-hydrides presented strong (1 1 1) texture and followed the (0 0 0 1)α-Zr//{1 1 1}δ-ZrH1.66 orientation relationship with the α-Zr matrix. During hydriding, α-Zr recrystallization texture was developed from the initial deformation texture.