An improved formulation of the oxygen-diffusion problem and its application to Zircaloy oxidation by steam

Numerical solutions of the oxygen-diffusion problem arising in the oxidation of metals at high temperatures are complicated by the change in density as the oxide is formed and the occurrence of moving boundaries separating the different phases. The former complication is resolved by a transformation of the dependent variable and the coordinate, which reduces the problem to a form identical to one without density change. The latter complication is dealt with by demonstrating an analogy with the Stefan problem in heat transfer with phase change in the enthalpy formulation, for which abundant numerical works exist. A finite-difference code is written to solve the resulting equations. It is successfully applied to simulate an oxidation experiment of Zircaloy by steam at 1600°C.