Abstract
A wet-chemical method combined with spark plasma sintering was used to prepare a W–Y2O3 alloy. High-temperature tensile tests and nano-indentation microhardness tests were used to characterize the mechanical properties of the alloy. After He-ion irradiation, fuzz and He bubbles were observed on the irradiated surface. The irradiation embrittlement was reflected by the crack indentations formed during the microhardness tests. A phase transformation from α-W to γ-W was investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Polycrystallization and amorphization were also observed in the irradiation damage layer. The W materials tended to exhibit lattice distortion, amorphization, polycrystallization and phase transformation under He-ion irradiation. The transformation mechanism predicted by the atomic lattice model was consistent with the available experimental observations. These findings clarify the mechanism of the structural transition of W under ion irradiation and provide a clue for identifying materials with greater irradiation resistance.
Highlights
A wet-chemical method combined with spark plasma sintering was used to prepare a W–Y2O3 alloy
No Y2O3 peak was detected in the X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern, which may be attributable to the low ratio of added Y2O3
On the basis of the empirical potential, we propose that the void should be a He bubble that is viewed from the cross-section direction
Summary
A wet-chemical method combined with spark plasma sintering was used to prepare a W–Y2O3 alloy. W and its alloys are used as plasma facing materials (PFMs) in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and exhibit promise as materials for use in fusion devices because of their excellent properties, such as their high melting points, good high-temperature strength, high sputtering thresholds and high irradiation resistance[1,2,3]. These alloys exhibit serious embrittlement problems at low temperatures during recrystallization and irradiation[4,5,6,7]. To study the behavior of these irradiation defects (the interstitial atoms, vacancy), other researchers have studied the formation energy and the binding energy using simulation calculations[37,38]
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