Low-cycle fatigue behavior of zirconium fuel cladding with Cr coatings deposited by High-power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering

•Low cycle fatigue behaviour of Cr-coated zirconium fuel cladding was investigated.•Cr coatings were prepared by HiPIMS and DCMS deposition technique, respectively.•HiPIMS-Cr coating has better fatigue performance than DOMS-Cr one. In this paper, the work reports on finding of an experimental investigation of the low cycle fatigue performance of Cr-coated zirconium fuel cladding. Cr coatings were fabricated by utilizing High-power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) and Direct Current Magnetron Sputtering (DCMS) deposition techniques, respectively. The experimental results have indicated that, due to the different discharge characteristics of DCMS and HiPIMS, the microstructure and mechanical performances of the deposited Cr coating are significantly different. The film morphology alter from columnar for DCMS-Cr coating to dense for HiPIMS-Cr coating, and the hardness of HiPIMS-Cr coating is higher than the values of DCMS-Cr coating. The low cycle fatigue performance of HiPIMS-Cr coated zirconium fuel cladding is better than that of DCMS-Cr coated ones, which revealed that the dense Cr coating benefitted the low-cycle fatigue life of the zirconium alloy cladding tube.