Post irradiated microstructure and mechanical properties of pure V

N Gayathri and P Mukherjee and S Mandal and A Sarkar and U Saha and S Dey and A Dutta and TK Roy and S Neogy, JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 564, 153648 (2022).

DOI: 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153648

Proton irradiation has been carried out on pure vanadium samples and the changes in the microstructure and mechanical properties have been evaluated as a function of dose. The microstructural parameters such as domain size and microstrain have been assessed along different crystallographic planes using the X-ray diffraction line profile analysis methods such as simplified breadth and the modified Rietveld technique. No significant change in the dislocation density is observed as a function of dose from the XRD results. However, the results of positron annihilation spectroscopy in terms of positron lifetime and S-parameter clearly indicated the formation of small defect clusters with irradiation. Transmission electron microscopy investigation confirmed the presence of small dislocation loops in the irradiated samples. Molecular dynamics simulations carried out to model the formation of irradiation-induced defects clusters with irradiation dose support the experimental observation of small defect clusters and increasing cluster size with dose. The yield strength and tensile strength showed systematic increase with irradiation dose corroborating with the results of microhardness measurement. The fractography of the tensile samples clearly showed the characteristics of brittle fracture in the irradiated samples.(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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