Hydrogen retention and affecting factors in rolled tungsten: Thermal desorption spectra and molecular dynamics simulations.

Hydrogen isotope retention of tungsten in nuclear fusion reactors is one of the hot research issues all along. In this paper, tungsten samples in different rolled surfaces were polished by mechanical processing, subsequently subjected to D 2 + irradiation and thermal desorption. To better understand the experimental observations, this study also performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and investigated the effects of temperature, grain number, grain boundary density, and crystal orientation on hydrogen retention. It is found that the grain number and grain boundary density of rolled tungsten increase successively in RD/TD, RD/ND, and TD/ND surfaces. The RD/ND surface exhibits the best hydrogen radiation resistance, whereas the TD/ND surface is unsatisfactory. MD simulations further indicate that hydrogen retention is more obvious with the increase of grain density in tungsten, and hydrogen atoms are more easily enriched at the grain boundaries. With the increase in temperature, the retention of hydrogen atoms in monocrystalline/polycrystalline tungsten decreases significantly. The average implantation depth of H atoms is deepest along the <111> and <112> crystalline directions, which reveals that hydrogen retention is dependent on the crystal orientations. The good agreement between the experimental data and simulation results reveals that grain boundaries play an important role in hydrogen retention. [Display omitted] • The hydrogen retention behavior is studied in W samples with different rolled surfaces. • RD/ND surface has the best hydrogen resistance, while the TD/ND surface is undesirable. • The hydrogen retention behavior depends on temperature, grain size, grain boundary density and orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]