Research progress in FeCrAl alloys for accident-tolerant fuel cladding

After the Fukushima accident, there is an urgent need to develop fuel cladding materials to meet the performance requirements of materials under severe accident conditions, and therefore greatly improving the accident tolerance of nuclear power plants. Although the macroscopic thermal neutron absorption capture cross-section of the FeCrAl alloy is much higher than that of zirconium alloy, however, its good corrosion resistance, high temperature mechanical properties and radiation damage resistance in severe accident conditions make it become a candidate material of accident-tolerant fuel cladding. Currently, the performance of various industrial FeCrAl alloys can not meet the requirements of materials for nuclear power plants. Therefore, the FeCrAl alloy needs to be optimized in order to obtain a better performance. The research progress of corrosion behavior, mechanical properties, microstructural evolution and mechanical properties under irradiation, weldability and processability of FeCrAl alloys are summarized systematically. Meanwhile, the corrosion mechanism at high temperatures and the reasons for the change of microstructure and mechanical properties of FeCrAl alloy are analyzed. Besides, the main problems of FeCrAl alloy of high temperature corrosion behavior, weldability, workability and the future research directions are proposed.