Swelling in commercial Fe-Cr-Ni based alloys under electron irradiation

Abstract

Electron irradiation in a 1 MeV electron microscope has been used to study the void swelling response of several commercial austenitic stainless steels and iron-nickel based superalloys. Use of the 1 MeV microscope permits direct, continuous observation of the void development during elevated-temperature irradiations at displacement rates about 10 000 times greater then those in a fast breeder reactor. The alloys examined in this work included AISI 310, RA 330, A286, M813, Nimonic ∗ ∗ Nimonic is the registered trademark of Henry Wiggin and Company, UK. Inconel and Incoloy are registered trademarks of the International Nickel Company, Inc. PE16, Inconel ∗ 706, Inconel ∗ 718 and Incoloy ∗ 901. Both helium preinjected specimens and uninjected specimens were studied. In all of the above alloys, swelling proceeds by formation of irradiation-induced dislocations and voids, followed by growth of the voids. The swelling rates and peak swelling temperatures vary considerably with alloy composition, heat treatment and helium preinjection. Comparisons of these results with recently reported swelling data from the same alloys after high fluence neutron irradiation in the EBR-II reactor shows good qualitative agreement in most cases. Helium preinjection of the electron irradiated specimens generally produced a poorer simulation than no helium preinjection. In one or two cases where the electron and neutron irradiation results strongly disagree, the differences appear to result from differences in irradiation-induced precipitation. Although the correlations between neutron and electron irradiation results are inadequate to obtain reliable engineering data by simulation, in-reactor swelling behavior is in general qualitatively well-represented by swelling response in the 1 MeV electron microscope.