Abstract
Neutron irradiation of metals results in decreased fracture toughness, decreased ductility, increased yield strength and increased ductile-to-brittle transition temperature. Designers use the most limiting material properties throughout the reactor vessel lifetime to determine acceptable safety margins. To reduce analysis conservatism, a new model is proposed based on an internal state variable approach for the plastic behavior of unirradiated ductile materials to support its use for analyzing irradiated materials. The proposed modeling addresses low temperature irradiation of 304L stainless steel, and predicts uniaxial tensile test data of irradiated experimental specimens. The model was implemented as a user-defined material subroutine (UMAT) in the finite element software ABAQUS. Results are compared between the unirradiated and irradiated specimens subjected to tension tests.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
