C. Heintze

Mechanical Properties of Spark Plasma Sintered Fe-Cr Compacts Strengthened by Nanodispersed Yttria Particles

Abstract Oxide dispersion strengthening of high-Cr steels is a well-recognized way to extend the application window including nuclear applications for this class of materials. The experimental investigation of model alloys of less complexity is important in order to separate individual influence factors and to understand the irradiation behaviour. The present work is devoted to the mechanical properties of ODS Fe-9wt%Cr alloys produced by means of spark plasma sintering. The range of material conditions covers contents of nanodispersed yttria of 0 (reference), 0.3 wt%, and 0.6 wt% as well as variations of the milling time. Results obtained for the density, elastic properties, hardness, tensile behaviour, and brittle-ductile transition are reported, and the effect of ODS content and PM process parameters is discussed.

The Influence of Helium and ODS on the Irradiation-Induced Hardening of Eurofer97 at 300°C

The influence of helium on the mechanical properties of reduced-activation ferritic/martensitic Cr-steels under fusion-relevant irradiation conditions is still a concern. While the fact that He can influence the mechanical properties is well established [1,2], the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood [1,2]. In this work the effect of He and displacements per atom (dpa) on the irradiation-induced hardening of Eurofer97 at 300°C was studied. Self-ion irradiation was applied to simulate the neutron-irradiation-induced damage. Helium was implanted prior to (pre-implantation), simultaneously (dual-beam irradiation) or following the (post-implantation) self-ion irradiation to investigate the He effect. Nanoindentation was used in order to characterize the damage layer. Under the present conditions (300°C, 1 dpa, 10 appmHe) the observed hardening increased in the following order: single-beam Fe-ion irradiation/pre-implantation < simultaneous implantation < post-implantation. We conclude, that there is a significant interaction between damage and He. Additionally, Eurofer97 and ODS-Eurofer were irradiated with Fe ions up to 1 and 10 dpa to study the effect of the oxide particles on the irradiation-induced hardening. We have found a higher irradiation-induced hardening at 1 dpa for ODS-Eurofer but a steeper hardness increase per dpa up to 10 dpa for Eurofer97.

Nanoindentation of ion-irradiated reactor pressure vessel steels – model-based interpretation and comparison with neutron irradiation

Abstract Ion-irradiation-induced hardening is investigated on six selected reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels. The steels were irradiated with 5 MeV Fe2+ ions at fluences ranging from 0.01 to 1.0 displacements per atom (dpa) and the induced hardening of the surface layer was probed with nanoindentation. To separate the indentation size effect and the substrate effect from the irradiation-induced hardness profile, we developed an analytic model with the plastic zone of the indentation approximated as a half sphere. This model allows the actual hardness profile to be retrieved and the measured hardness increase to be assigned to the respective fluence. The obtained values of hardness increase vs. fluence are compared for selected pairs of samples in order to extract effects of the RPV steel composition. We identify hardening effects due to increased levels of copper, manganese-nickel and phosphorous. Further comparison with available neutron-irradiated conditions of the same heats of RPV steels indicates pronounced differences of the considered effects of composition for irradiation with neutrons vs. ions.

Application of Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy to the Study of Irradiated Fe-Cr Alloys

The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of Cr on the microstructure of neutron-irradiated Fe-Cr alloys. Neutron irradiation-induced damage at its early stage was simulated by ion implantation. Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy was applied to identify irradiation-induced defects depending on the Cr-content in Fe-Cr alloys. Different irradiation scenarios were used to investigate the influences of irradiation step by step.