Atomistic modeling of He embrittlement at grain boundaries of alpha-Fe: a common feature over different grain boundaries

T Suzudo and M Yamaguchi and T Tsuru, MODELLING AND SIMULATION IN MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, 21, 085013 (2013).

DOI: 10.1088/0965-0393/21/8/085013

He atoms introduced into materials may lead them to fracture intergranularly, and understanding such an effect is a key issue in the design of future fusion reactors. In the current study, we investigated the decrease of grain boundary (GB) strength caused by He segregation at several kinds of alpha-Fe GBs by exploiting first principles calculations and a set of empirical potentials. We found enough evidence to support the notion that the GB cohesive energy, a critical measure of GB strength, approximately scales with the He concentration at the GB surface, regardless of the GB type.

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