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FeCrAl ferritic alloys are excellent cladding candidates for accident tolerant fuel systems due to their high resistance to oxidation as a result of formation of a protective Al2O3 scale at high temperatures in steam. In this study, we report the irradiation response of the 10Cr and 13Cr FeCrAl cladding tubes under Fe2+ ion irradiation up to ∼16 dpa at 300 °C. Dislocation loop size, density and characteristics were determined using both two-beam bright field transmission electron microscopy and on-zone scanning transmission electron microscopy techniques. 10Cr (C06M2) tube has a lower dislocation density, larger grain size and a slightly weaker texture compared to the 13Cr (C36M3) tube before irradiation. After irradiation to 0.7 dpa and 16 dpa, the fraction of type sessile dislocations decreases with increasing Cr amount in the alloys. It has been found that there is neither void formation nor α′ precipitation as a result of ion irradiations in either alloy. Therefore, dislocation loops were determined to be the only irradiation induced defects contributing to the hardening. Nanoindentation testing before the irradiation revealed that the average nanohardness of the C36M3 tube is higher than that of the C06M2 tube. The average nanohardness of irradiated tube samples saturated at 1.6–2.0 GPa hardening for both tubes between ∼3.4 dpa and ∼16 dpa. The hardening calculated based on transmission electron microscopy was found to be consistent with nanohardness measurements.

EK-181 is a low-activation ferritic/martensitic steel that is an attractive candidate for in-core component materials for both fast reactors and fusion reactors. To assess the effect of microstructural engineering on radiation response, two variants of EK-181 were studied: one in an annealed condition and the other subject to severe plastic deformation. These specimens were irradiated with 3.5 MeV Fe self-ions up to 400 peak displacements per atom (dpa) at temperatures ranging from 400 °C to 500 °C. The deformation did not suppress swelling over the whole irradiated region. Instead, deformed samples showed higher swelling in the near-surface region. Void swelling was found to be correlated with grain boundary instability. Significant grain growth occurred when steady-state void growth started.

A nanostructured ferritic alloy (NFA), 14YWT, was produced in the form of thin walled tubing. The stability of the nano-oxides (NOs) was determined under 3.5 MeV Fe +2 irradiations up to a dose of ∼585 dpa at 450 °C. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atom probe tomography (APT) show that severe ion irradiation results in a ∼25% reduction in size between the unirradiated and irradiated case at 270 dpa while no further reduction within the experimental error was seen at higher doses. Conversely, number density increased by ∼30% after irradiation. This ‘inverse coarsening’ can be rationalized by the competition between radiation driven ballistic dissolution and diffusional NO reformation. No significant changes in the composition of the matrix or NOs were observed after irradiation. Modeling the experimental results also indicated a dissolution of the particles.

Ferritic/martensitic alloys are required for advanced reactor components to survive 500–600 neutron-induced dpa. Ion-induced void swelling of ferritic/martensitic alloy T91 in the quenched and tempered condition has been studied using a defocused, non-rastered 3.5 MeV Fe-ion beam at 475 °C to produce damage levels up to 1000 peak displacements per atom (dpa). The high peak damage level of 1000 dpa is required to reach 500–600 dpa level due to injected interstitial suppression of void nucleation in the peak dpa region, requiring data extraction closer to the surface at lower dpa levels. At a relatively low peak damage level of 250 dpa, voids began to develop, appearing first in the near-surface region. With increasing ion fluence, swelling was observed deeper in the specimen, but remained completely suppressed in the back half of the ion range, even at 1000 peak dpa. The local differences in dpa rate in the front half of the ion range induce an “internal temperature shift” that strongly influences the onset of swelling, with shorter transient regimes resulting from lower dpa rates, in agreement not only with observations in neutron irradiation studies but also in various ion irradiations. Swelling was accompanied by radiation-induced precipitation of Cu-rich and Si, Ni, Mn-rich phases were observed by atom probe tomography, indicating concurrent microchemical evolution was in progress. In comparison to other ferritic/martensitic alloys during ion irradiation, T91 exhibits good swelling resistance with a swelling incubation period of about 400 local dpa.

© 2020 Elsevier B.V.Laser powder bed additively manufactured Grade 91 composition steel was investigated in comparison to wrought Grade 91 steel in terms of microstructure and mechanical properties. As-deposited additively manufactured Grade 91 steel had a microstructure of lower bainitic regions surrounded by martensite. This is significantly different from the typical tempered martensitic microstructure of conventionally produced Grade 91 steel. The as-deposited additively manufactured material had excellent tensile mechanical properties with greater strength than the wrought material at room temperature, 300 and 600°C showing excellent promise for nuclear applications. Retention of strength at 300 and 600°C for the as-deposited additively manufactured material was attributed to transitional carbides in the lower bainitic regions. The additively manufactured material was also investigated in the tempered as well as normalized and tempered conditions, each showing decreased strength at elevated temperature than the as-deposited material.

A dual-phase 12Cr oxide-dispersion-strengthened (ODS) alloy, with improved corrosion and oxidation resistance exhibits promising void swelling resistance and microstructural stability under Fe2+ ion irradiation to 800 dpa at 475 °C. Dispersoids were originally present in both ferrite and tempered martensite grains, with the latter having a wider range of dispersoid sizes. In both phases dispersoids >10 nm in diameter are incoherent with the matrix, while smaller dispersoids are coherent. During irradiation the larger incoherent dispersoids shrank and disappeared. Beyond 60 dpa dispersoids in both phases approached a near-identical equilibrium size of ∼2–2.5 nm, which appears to be rather independent of local displacement rate. Grain morphology was found to be stable under irradiation. Compared to other ferritic-martensitic alloys, the ion-induced swelling of this alloy is quite low, arising from swelling resistance associated with both tempered martensite and dispersoids in both phases. Swelling in tempered martensite is an order of magnitude less than in the ferrite phase.

Ion beam scanning or “rastering” is a technique that is frequently used to uniformly cover a larger specimen area during ion irradiation. In this study, we addressed the effects of rastered and defocused beams, using 3.5 MeV iron ions to irradiate pure iron at 450 °C to peak doses of 50 and 150 dpa. We focused on a frequency range relevant to pulsed fusion devices and show its importance to ion irradiation experiments used for simulating neutron damage. The beam was scanned at 15.6, 1.94, and 0.244 Hz and the resulting microstructure was compared with that produced by a non-rastered, defocused beam. At 150 dpa, the defocused beam case resulted in the highest observed void swelling of ∼12% at a depth of ∼700 nm, a depth short of the peak dose position at 1000 nm. The swelling at the peak dose position was significantly reduced by the defect imbalance phenomenon. A maximum swelling rate of ∼0.12%/dpa was measured in this specimen at a depth of 600 nm below the ion-incident surface. Rastering led to much lower swelling levels achieved at significantly lower swelling rates, with the greatest rate of decrease occurring below ∼1 Hz. Furthermore, the impact of the defect imbalance arising from interstitial injection and spatial distribution difference of initial interstitial and vacancy defects was strongly pronounced in the non-rastered case with a lesser effect observed with decreasing raster frequency.