Simulation Experiment on Study in the Radiation Resistance of Advanced Ferrite-Martensite Steel Hardened by Disperse Inclusions

Abstract

It is shown that simulation experiments on the heavy-ion irradiation of structural materials used in nuclear power facilities can be used for tomographic atomic-stand studies. Experiments have been performed on irradiation of samples of advanced steel used in nuclear and fusion reactors EK-181 and ODS Eurofer by iron ions to damaging dose 10 dpa. The steel is characterized by the presence of a large number of nanosize (2-3 nm) clusters, dispersion-hardening these materials. Irradiation was performed on the TIPr-1 heavyion linear accelerator. Atomic-probe studies of irradiated samples reveal a change in the composition of nanosize clusters under irradiation.The determination of the service life of steel operating in radiation fields is the most important stage in the development of new reactor materials. The most difficult stage is studying the radiation resistance of core materials, since this requires prolonged irradiation in a reactor. A high dose (>100 dpa) of neutron irradiation is reached over months-years even in fast reactors. In addition, strong activation considerably complicates subsequent studies, especially microscope studies.It is known that the quickest method of producing radiation damage is irradiation with heavy ions. It reproduces cascade creation of defects, which is also the main damage occurring when fast neutrons pass through a material. Heavyion irradiation makes it possible to study the role of cascades of atomic displacements in radiation degradation processes in materials. It is important to note that when materials are irradiated by heavy ions radiation defects are formed nonuniformly, and for this reason in simulation experiments samples for microscope studies are irradiated. The first direction in such experiments was irradiation of samples for transmission electron microscopy and subsequent study of their microstructure. Another direction of such studies is irradiation and study of samples for tomographic atomic-probe microscopy. The unique possibilities of an atomic probe with respect to local resolution of the chemical composition of a material on atomic scales are used in these experiments. A change in the macroscopic properties is predicted on the basis of data on the change in the microstructure of materials in simulation experiments.In the present work, it is shown that simulation experiments with heavy-ion irradiation of samples can be used for tomographic atomic-probe studies. These studies were performed at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics using as a base a complex for studying the radiation resistance of materials that includes a TIPr-1 heavy-ion linear accelerator (heavy-ion prototype) with spatially uniform quadrupole focusing and ultramicrosopy methods -tomographic atomic probe, transmission electron microscopy and others [1,2].

The comparison of microstructure and nanocluster evolution in proton and neutron irradiated Fe–9%Cr ODS steel to 3 dpa at 500 °C

“…While several studies observed oxide dissolution upon irradiation [5,8,12,27,[52][53][54][55] with increased stability at higher temperatures [5,8], others have reported oxide stability or even slight coarsening upon irradiation [5,6,9,[28][29][30]40,[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64]. However, all of these data were collected under inconsistent experimental conditions, including different irradiation temperatures, doses, irradiating particles, and using various analysis methods (i.e.…”

Effect of self-ion irradiation on the microstructural changes of alloy EK-181 in annealed and severely deformed conditions

“…In addition to increases in grain boundary densities, large shear stresses involved in the ECAP process result in fragmentation and redistribution of second phase particles [26,27]. Several studies have shown that ion irradiation results in compositional and size changes of nano-structured precipitates occurring together with grain boundary segregation [18,28]. The overall structural stability of SPD-introduced features depends strongly on material composition and fabrication.…”