Dose and compositional dependence of irradiation-induced property change in FeCr

The study of irradiation damage effects on structural steels is crucial for next-generation nuclear reactors.  The successful operation of ferritic/martensitic steels as structural components relies on an understanding of irradiation-induced defect behaviour in the material.  

In this work by Dr Kay Song, Professor David Armstrong and former Oxford Materials colleagues, in collaboration with  Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Helsinki, iron and iron chromium alloys were irradiated by heavy ions to study the effect of irradiation on the lattice strain and hardness of the materials.  Their paper*, featured on the front cover of Journal of Nuclear Materials, explains that this work is the first time low dose (0.0001 displacements-per-atom) effects have been studied experimentally in steels.

The authors also observed saturation behaviour in lattice strain as a function of dose, which has been predicted in simulations, but never previously observed in experiments.  

*'Dose and compositional dependence of irradiation-induced property change in FeCr'.