The Studies of Irradiation Hardening of Stainless Steel Reactor Internals under Proton and Xenon Irradiation

The Studies of Irradiation Hardening of Stainless Steel Reactor Internals under Proton and Xenon Irradiation

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Specimens of stainless steel reactor internals were irradiated with 240 keV protons and 6 MeV Xe ions at room temperature.Nanoindentation constant stiffness measurement tests were carried HELMETS out to study the hardness variations.An irradiation hardening effect was observed in proton- and Xe-irradiated specimens and more irradiation damage causes a larger hardness increment.The Nix-Gao model was used to extract the bulk-equivalent hardness of irradiation-damaged region and critical indentation depth.A different hardening level under H and Xe irradiation was obtained and the discrepancies of displacement damage rate and ion species may be the probable reasons.

It was observed that the hardness of Xe-irradiated specimens saturate at about 2 displacement/atom (dpa), whereas in the case of proton irradiation, Faceguards the saturation hardness may be more than 7 dpa.This discrepancy may be due to the different damage distributions.