Irradiation-Induced Hardening of Structural Materials after Low Temperature Irradiation

Abstract

Irradiation-induced hardening has been investigated in relation to austenitic SS316 steel, ferritic-martensitic T91 steel and 20Cr-40Fe-20Mn-20Ni high-entropy alloy (HEA). Specimens were irradiated with 1.4 MeV/Ar ions to doses of 0.5 - 10 displacements per atom (dpa) at room temperature. Hardening of the irradiated layer was examined with nanoindentation technique. The behavior of the hardness-depth curves was analyzed with respect to the ion irradiation dose. Regression analysis performed for high dose regime of irradiation by using a power-law function of the form ∆Н ∝ (dpa) n gives good agreement with the experimental data at n ~0.1-0.16 for structural alloys having different composition and different structural state.