Aging and Embrittlement of High Fluence Stainless Steels

[摘要] Irradiation of austenitic stainless steels results in the formation of dislocation loops, stacking fault tetrahedral, Ni-Si clusters and radiation-induced segregation (RIS). Of these features, it is the formation of precipitates which is most likely to impact the mechanical integrity at high dose. Unlike dislocation loops and RIS, precipitates exhibit an incubation period that can extend from 10 to 46 dpa, above which the cluster composition changes and a separate phase, (G-phase) forms. Both neutron and heavy ion irradiation showed that these clusters develop slowly and continue to evolve beyond 100 dpa. Overall, this work shows that the irradiated microstructure features produced by heavy ion irradiation are remarkably comparable in nature to those produced by neutron irradiation at much lower dose rates. The use of a temperature shift to account for the higher damage rate in heavy ion irradiation results in a fairly good match in the dislocation loop microstructure and the precipitate microstructure in austenitic stainless steels. Both irradiations also show segregation of the same elements and in the same directions, but to achieve comparable magnitudes, heavy ion irradiation must be conducted at a much higher temperature than that which produces a match with loops and precipitates. First-principles modeling has confirmed that the formation of Ni-Si precipitates under irradiation is likely caused by supersaturation of solute to defect sinks caused by highly correlated diffusion of Ni and Si. Thus, the formation and evolution of Ni-Si precipitates at high dose in austenitic stainless steels containing Si is inevitable.

[发布日期] 2012-12-31

[学科分类] 材料科学（综合）