Microstructure of out-of-pile annealed neutron irradiated beryllium studied by X-ray tomography

First simultaneous detection of helium and tritium inside bubbles in beryllium

“…In particular, temperature programmed desorption (TPD) experiments revealed simultaneous release of tritium and helium (Chernikov et al, 1996). This fact taken together with microstructural investigations (Chernikov et al, 1996;Pajuste et al, 2011;Vladimirov et al, 2015) allows to suggest that this simultaneous burst release occurs through the growth of bubbles until they overlap with each other and form in terconnected network of open channels reaching outer surface. In this moment simultaneous release peaks of He and T are registered in TPD experiments.…”

“…In the present study, beryllium was used in the form of pebbles with diameters of ∼1 mm produced by the rotation electrode method. Their microstructure before and after irradiation was described in detail in previous publications (Chakin et al, 2013;Klimenkov et al, 2013a;Vladimirov et al, 2015). The pebbles analyzed in this study were ir radiated within the high dose Be irradiation program (HIDOBE II) in the High Flux Reactor in Petten, Netherlands at T irr = 968 K up to a dose of 37 displacements per atom (dpa).…”

Aggregation of retained helium and hydrogen in titanium beryllide Be12Ti: a first-principles study

“…, Be 12 Ti) have potential applications in accelerators of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) 1 and solid breeding blankets in fusion demonstration (DEMO) reactors. 2,3 However, the radiogenic gas tritium (hydrogen isotope, T) and helium (He) with different concentrations simultaneously produced by neutron irradiations will inevitably accumulate in Be 4 and beryllides, 5 which could induce structural damage 6 and degradation of material properties. 7,8 In particular, the retention of radioactive tritium could bring difficulties in the disposal of Be-based wastes.…”

Proton irradiation effects on beryllium – A macroscopic assessment

“…An excellent summary of unirradiated beryllium properties are presented by K. A. Walsh [16] where the physical, elastic and crystallographic properties as functions of temperature are described. The microstructure of out-of-pile annealed neutron irradiated beryllium was studied in [17] by X-ray tomography. Specifically, beryllium reflector fragments irradiated for 15 years in a research reactor at low temperatures were post-irradiation annealed and porosity was deduced after annealing using synchrotron X-ray micro-tomography.…”