• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.38 no.7
• /
• pp.619-638
• /
• 2006

Low temperature irradiation can significantly harden metallic materials and often lead to strain localization and ductility loss in deformation. This paper provides a review on the radiation effects on the deformation of metallic materials, focusing on microscopic and macroscopic strain localization phenomena. The types of microscopic strain localization often observed in irradiated materials are dislocation channeling and deformation twinning, in which dislocation glides are evenly distributed and well confined in the narrow bands, usually a fraction of a micron wide. Dislocation channeling is a common strain localization mechanism observed virtually in all irradiated metallic materials with ductility, while deformation twinning is an alternative localization mechanism occurring only in low stacking fault energy(SFE) materials. In some high stacking fault energy materials where cross slip is easy, curved and widening channels can be formed depending on dose and stress state. Irradiation also prompts macroscopic strain localization (or plastic instability). It is shown that the plastic instability stress and true fracture stress are nearly independent of irradiation dose if there is no radiation-induced phase change or embrittlement. A newly proposed plastic Instability criterion is that the metals after irradiation show necking at yield when the yield stress exceeds the dose-independent plastic instability stress. There is no evident relationship between the microscopic and macroscopic strain localizations; which is explained by the long-range back-stress hardening. It is proposed that the microscopic strain localization is a generalized phenomenon occurring at high stress.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.188-195
• /
• 2002

To investigate the degradation of mechanical properties induced mainly by neutron irradiation, the tensile tests were conducted from room temperature to 300\\`c using the irradiated and the unirradiated Zr-2.5Nb pressure tube materials. The irradiated longitudinal and transverse specimens were collected from the coolant inlet, middle, and outlet parts of M-11 tube which had been operated in Wolsung CANDU Unit-1 and exposed to different operating temperatures and irradiation fluences. The different tensile behavior was characterized not by the fluences of irradiation but by the tensile loading direction. The transverse specimen showed the higher strength and lower elongation than those of the longitudinal one. It was believed that these phenomena resulted from the microstructure anisotropy caused by the extrusion process. The increased strength hardening and decreased elongation embrittlement of the irradiated material were compard to those of the unirradiated one. While the tensile strength of the inlet was higher than that of the outlet, the elongation of the inlet was lower than that of outlet. Considering the operation condition, it was proposed that the operating temperature could be a more effective parameter than the irradiation fluence for long-time life. Through the TEM observation, it was found that while the a-type dislocation density was increased, the c-type dislocation was not changed in the irradiated. The fact that the higher dislocation density was sequentially distributed over the inlet, the middle, and the outlet parts was consistent with the distribution of the tensile strength.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.66-71
• /
• 2000

Laser induced surface hardening of Tool steel(STC5) can be achieved either with or without surface melting. In trans-formation hardening as the surface is heated to a temperature below its melting point and is rapidly cooled solidified microstructures are usually much finer and stronger than those of the base matals. For this reason surface modification of tool steel by YAG laser irradiation has been studied as a function of processing parameters such as power density pulse width defocusing distance and molten depth. The high energy density changes and refines the microstructure of the near surface layer. In the case of beam passes martensite formed in the melt zone exhibited very high vickers hardness values. Molten depth and width depend on defocusing distance and energy of black color painting is more absorptive than other color painting.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.9-18
• /
• 2019

The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of simulating the mechanical properties of irradiatied austenitic stainless steels by cold-working. In this study, the tensile properties, cyclic hardening behaviors and fracture toughness of cold-worked TP316L stainless steel were compared with those of austenitic stainless steels irradiated by neutrons. It showed that cold-working can properly simulate the increase in strength and the decrease in ductility and fracture resistance of austenitic stainless steels by neutron irradiation, even though it could not perfectly simulate the microstructures of irradiated austenitic stainless steels. Also, cold-working can appropriately simulate the hardening behaviors of neutron irradiated austenitic stainless steels under monotonic and cyclic loading conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.7
• /
• pp.2408-2417
• /
• 2022

The nanoindentation behavior of P92 steel with thermomechanical treatment under 3.5 MeV Fe¹³⁺ ion irradiation at room temperature, 400 and 700 ℃ was investigated. Pop-in behavior is observed for all the samples with and without irradiation at room temperature, while the temperature dependence of pop-in behavior is only observed in irradiated samples. The average load and penetration depth at the onset of pop-in increase as the irradiation temperature increases, in line with the results of the maximum shear stress. Irradiation induced hardening is exhibited for all irradiated samples, but there is a significant reduction in the hardness of sample irradiated at 700 ℃ in comparison to the samples irradiated at room temperature and 400 ℃. The ratio of hardness to elastic modulus for all samples decreases with increasing penetration depth except for samples at 700 ℃. With the increasing of irradiation temperature, the ratio of the irreversible work to the total work gradually decreases. In contrast, it increases for samples without irradiation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 1995.10a
• /
• pp.921-924
• /
• 1995

Case hardening behavior of carbon tool steel(SK5) was investigated after pulsed YAG laser irradiation. In the case od beam passes,martensite formed in the melt zone and in former pearlite regions of the austenitization zone exhibits vary high Vickers hardness values. The molten depth and width decrease as the beam power density increase. The influence of depth and width of color painted specimen was also investigated. The molten zone of the black painted specimen was the largest. The were loss of the black painted specimen was smaller than any other painted or raw material.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.51 no.1
• /
• pp.238-248
• /
• 2019

In the high-temperature and high-pressure irradiation environments, the multi-field coupling processes of hydrogen diffusion, hydride precipitation and mechanical deformation in Zircaloy cladding tubes occur. To simulate this hydrogen-induced complex behavior, a multi-field coupling method is developed, with the irradiation hardening effects and hydride-precipitation-induced expansion and hardening effects involved in the mechanical constitutive relation. The out-pile tests for a cracked cladding tube after irradiation are simulated, and the numerical results of the multi-fields at different temperatures are obtained and analyzed. The results indicate that: (1) the hydrostatic stress gradient is the fundamental factor to activate the hydrogen-induced multi-field coupling behavior excluding the temperature gradient; (2) in the local crack-tip region, hydrides will precipitate faster at the considered higher temperatures, which can be fundamentally attributed to the sensitivity of TSSP and hydrogen diffusion coefficient to temperature. The mechanism is partly explained for the enlarged velocity values of delayed hydride cracking (DHC) at high temperatures before crack arrest. This work lays a foundation for the future research on DHC.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.38 no.5
• /
• pp.405-410
• /
• 2006

Microstructural features and their related mechanical property changes in the 309L cladding and the heat affected zone (HAZ) of SA508 cl.3 steel were investigated through the use of TEM, tensile and small punch (SP) tests. The specimens were irradiated at 563 K up to the neutron fluences of $5.79{\times}10^{19}n/cm^2$ (>1MeV). The microstructure of the clad was mainly composed of a fcc ${\gamma}-phase$, a low percentage of bcc ${\delta}-ferrite$, and a brittle ${\sigma}-phase$. Along the weld fusion line there formed a heavy carbide precipitation with a width of $20{\sim}40{\mu}m$, showing preferential cracking during plastic deformation. The yield stress and ductile-to-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) of the irradiated clads increased. The origin of the hardening and the shift of the DBTT are discussed in terms of the irradiation-produced defect clusters of a fine size and brittle ${\sigma}-phase$.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.3
• /
• pp.1015-1020
• /
• 2023

A multi-layer design is applied to mitigate single event effect (SEE) in a 28 nm System-on-Chip (SoC). It depends on asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP), redundancy and system watchdog. Irradiation tests utilized 70 and 90 MeV proton beams to examine its performance through comparative analysis. Via examining SEEs in on-chip memory (OCM), compared with the trial without applying the multi-layer design, the test results demonstrate that the adopted multi-layer design can effectively mitigate SEEs in the SoC.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.3
• /
• pp.958-967
• /
• 2023

This work studies the defect features in a dilute FeMnNi alloy by an Object Kinetic Monte Carlo (OKMC) model based on the "grey-alloy" method. The dose rate effect is studied at 573 K in a wide range of dose rates from 10^-8 to 10^-4 displacement per atom (dpa)/s and demonstrates that the density of defect clusters rises while the average size of defect clusters decreases with increasing dose rate. However, the dose-rate effect decreases with increasing irradiation dose. The model considered two realistic mechanisms for producing <100>-type self-interstitial atom (SIA) loops and gave reasonable production ratios compared with experimental results. Our simulation shows that the proportion of <100>-type SIA loops could change obviously with the dose rate, influencing hardening prediction for various dose rates irradiation. We also investigated ways to compensate for the dose rate effect. The simulation results verified that about a 100 K temperature shift at a high dose rate of 1×10^-4 dpa/s could produce similar irradiation microstructures to a lower dose rate of 1×10^-7 dpa/s irradiation, including matrix defects and deduced solute migration events. The work brings new insight into the OKMC modeling and the dose rate effect of the Fe-based alloys.