Abstract
Helium bubble formation was examined by scanning/transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM) in Fe-9/10Cr binary alloys and two dispersion strengthened nanostructured alloys (CNA3 and 14YWT containing 5–10 nm diameter carbide and oxide particles, respectively) after ex-situ and in-situ He implantation to ~10,000 appm at 500 to 900 °C. The combination of high-resolution STEM images and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) revealed that the Y-Ti-O nanoparticles in 14YWT were uniformly distributed and exhibited a one-to-one relationship for bubble attachment to the nanoclusters. In the in-situ experiment at 900 °C, grain boundary cracking was severe in the Fe-10Cr model alloy, but not in the nanostructured alloys. From 500 to 900 °C, the bubble size generally increased with increasing irradiation temperature, while the bubble density decreased with increasing temperature. At the same temperatures, the bubble size in the implanted materials was in the order of Fe-9/10Cr > CNA3 > 14YWT, while the bubble density showed the opposite order. The observed bubble number densities for the nanostructured alloys are comparable to the nanoparticle density, suggesting that the nanoparticles in both alloys were effective in trapping He. Our results indicate that very high He concentrations can be managed in nanostructured alloys by sequestering the helium into smaller bubbles (which leads to a lower volume swelling value) and to shield He from the grain boundaries. This can be attributed to the much higher sink strength associated with the nanoclusters or the He trapping ability between different types of nanoclusters.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 117165 |
| Journal | Acta Materialia |
| Volume | 217 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 15 2021 |
Funding
Funding: This research was sponsored by the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy under grant # DE-SC0006661 with the University of Tennessee (YRL and SJZ). The IVEM portion of this work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07- 051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities experiment. The fabrication of the Fe-Cr binary alloys has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training program 2019–2020 under Grant Agreement No. 633053. The authors are thankful for the IVEM tandem facility support from Argonne National Laboratory, and the ion accelerator support from National Tsing Hua University. We acknowledge Dr. Da Chen for his help on the ion irradiation. The authors would also like to acknowledge funding from the State of Tennessee and Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) through their support of the Center for Materials Processing. We thank Drs. Arunodaya Bhattacharya, Roger Stoller, Brian Wirth, William Weber, and Haixuan Xu for their insightful comments and suggestions.
Keywords
- Helium bubble
- In-situ TEM
- Nanostructured ferritic alloy
- ODS alloy
- Radiation effects