Abstract
WNiFe tungsten heavy alloys (WHAs) are leading candidates for fusion plasma-facing components, since they are toughened by embedding brittle W-particles in a ductile phase honeycomb matrix. We show that fatigue cracks in a 90W7Ni3Fe WHA, up to ≈ 1.3 mm long, are completely healed by vacuum annealing at 1300 °C for 24 h, as confirmed by microstructural observations and locating the healed crack initiation site, by both re-loading and re-precracking. Annealing also improves WHA toughness. Healing is not due to previously postulated mechanisms. We hypothesize that it derives from internal annealing stresses that extrude the ductile phase into adjacent cracks.
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