Overview of the vanadium alloy researches for fusion reactors

Materials Research and Development Opportunities in Reactors Fusion

“…Vanadium alloys are such that they not only have excellent compatibility with Li, but also provide room for high operating temperatures and eliminate the need of ceramic breeders or neutron multipliers (Chen et al, 2011). Vanadium alloys are one of the candidate materials for structural components of blanket modules in the fusion reactor owing to their high temperature strength, high thermal stress factor, low long-term activation, excellent compatibility against Li, etc.…”

“…Vanadium alloys are one of the candidate materials for structural components of blanket modules in the fusion reactor owing to their high temperature strength, high thermal stress factor, low long-term activation, excellent compatibility against Li, etc. The vanadium alloy with V-4Cr-4Ti type composition has been developed for fusion blanket applications by US, Japan, Russia and China (Muroga et al, 2002;Chen et al, 2011). There are two ways to improve the strength of V-alloys; one of the methods involves increase in amount of alloying elements such as Cr, etc.…”

Influence of vanadium precursor powder size on microstructures and properties of W–V alloy

“…For example, the addition of Re reduces the ductile-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) and improves the ductility of W, but embrittlement and transmutation of Re can be induced by neutron irradiation which highly degrades the performance of W-based materials [7]. On the other hand, vanadium (V) and titanium (Ti) alloys due to the unique capability to bear intense neutron irradiation and good mechanical properties are considered as a very good structural material for the nuclear reactors [8]. Several studies [9,10] have shown a reasonably improvement in the micro-hardness, strength and fracture toughness of W-Ti alloys compared to pure W, but the formation of some metastable Ti phase spoils their mechanical performances.…”

Heterogeneous Precipitation and Mechanical Property Change by Heat Treatments for the Laser Weldments of V-4Cr-4Ti Alloy

“…Recent efforts have made a significant progress in fabrication, joining and coating technology of the alloys [1,2]. Especially the welding technology has advanced largely including gas-tungsten-arc (GTA) welding [3,4], laser welding [5] and electron beam (EB) welding [6].…”