The effect of neutron irradiation on the magnetic properties of low carbon steels

Abstract

The present work describes an experimental investigation of the effect of neutron irradiation on the change in particular magnetic properties of low carbon steels. The experimental work was carried out using samples of type SD-31 steel. The process of neutron exposure was iradiation followed by re-irradiation of up to twice the dose rate under the same exposure circumstances and exposure times. The experimental results show that there is a change in the magnetic properties, particularly in the area of the hysteresis loop as a measure of the loss factor due to the exposure to neutron irradiation. The megnetic loss factor increases as the neutron fluence increases in spite of the different irradiation rates. The increase in the hysteresis loop area reduced after the second irradiation to 12% of its value after the first irradiation. This reduction may be attributed to the formation of tiny voids which become significant at an integrated flux of 1.88 × 10 18 n/cm 2.