Abstract
Pure tungsten samples have been neutron irradiated in HFIR at 90–850 °C to 0.03–2.2 dpa. A dispersed barrier hardening model informed by the available microstructure data has been used to predict the hardness. Comparison of the model predictions and the measured Vickers hardness reveals the dominant hardening contribution at various irradiation conditions. For tungsten samples irradiated in HFIR, the results indicate that voids and dislocation loops contributed to the hardness increase in the low dose region (<0.3 dpa), while the formation of intermetallic second phase precipitation, resulting from transmutation, dominates the radiation-induced strengthening beginning with a relatively modest dose (>0.6 dpa). The precipitate contribution is most pronounced for the HFIR irradiations, whereas the radiation-induced defect cluster microstructure can rationalize the entirety of the hardness increase observed in tungsten irradiated in the fast neutron spectrum of Joyo and the mixed neutron spectrum of JMTR.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 235-243 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 480 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 1 2016 |
Funding
The work presented in this paper was partially supported by Laboratory Directed R&D funds at ORNL. The research was also sponsored by the US Department of Energy Office of Fusion Energy Science under grants DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle LLC and grant DOE - DE-SC0006661 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and by the US-Japan PHENIX project under contract NFE-13-04478 , with UT-Battelle LLC.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| US Department of Energy Office of Fusion Energy Science | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| UT-Battelle LLC | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | DE-SC0006661 |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| University of Tennessee | NFE-13-04478 |