Abstract

Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) ferritic steels are investigated as possible structural material for the future generation of high temperature gas cooled nuclear reactors. ODS-steels are considered to replace other high temperature materials for tubing or structural parts. The oxide particles serve for interfacial pinning of moving dislocations. Therefore, the creep resistance is improved. In case of the usage of these materials in reactors, the behavior under irradiation must be further clarified. In this paper the effects induced by 4He2+ implantation into a ferritic ODS steel are investigated. The fluence ranges from 1016 to 1017 cm−2 and the energy from 1 to 2 MeV. The induced swelling is investigated for implantations at room temperature and 470 K. It is derived from the irradiation induced surface displacement, which is measured with an atomic force microscope (AFM). With a displacement damage of 0.6 dpa, a volume increase of 0.65% is observed at room temperature and 0.33% at 470 K. A cross-sectional cut is performed by focused ion beam and investigated by transmission electron microcopy (TEM). The defect density observed on the TEM micrographs agrees well with the computational simulation (TRIM) of the damage profile.

Details