Influence of Stacking Faults and Alloy Composition on Irradiation Induced Amorphization of Zrcr2, Zrfe2 And Zr3(Fei. X,Nix)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Zr-based intermetallic compounds ZrCr2, ZrFe2 and Zr3(Fei_x,Nix) were irradiated with high energy electrons at the HVEM/Tandem facility at Argonne National Laboratory to study their amorphization behavior. The results show that although ZrCr2 and ZrFe2 have the same Laves phase C15 fee crystal structure, their critical temperatures for amorphization under electron irradiation were 180 K and 80 K, showing that the substitution of Cr for Fe in the sublattice had a marked effect on the annealing characteristics of the material. The low temperature dose to amorphization was higher in ZrFe2 than in ZrCr2 by a factor of two. The presence of a high density of stacking faults had a strong effect on amorphization in both compounds causing the critical temperature to be increased by 10–15 K. By contrast, the addition of Ni to Zr3(Fei_x,Nix) had no effect on amorphization behavior for x=0. 1 and 0. 5. These results are discussed in terms of current models of amorphization based on defect accumulation and the attainment of a critical damage level, such as given by the Lindemann criterion.