Postirradiation Tensile Behavior of 300 Series Stainless Steels

Abstract

The effects of neutron irradiation on the tensile properties of several austenitic stainless steels are considered over a wide fluence and temperature range. At low fluence levels (about 1020 neutrons (n)/cm2, E > 1 MeV), displacement damage results in radiation hardening if the irradiation and test temperatures are below one half the absolute melting temperature (0.5 Tm) of the steel. Above 0.5 Tm, hardening no longer exists, but a ductility loss due to helium embrittlement is observed. The temperature above which radiation hardening is no longer significant increases with increasing fluence. Elevated temperature hardening after fast reactor irradiations is the result of void formation. The hardening observed after thermal reactor irradiations appears to be due to the formation of gas filled bubbles, but the nature of the gas is not clear.

Thermodynamics of an austenitic stainless steel (AISI-348) under in situ TEM heavy ion irradiation

“…According to Garner et al [48], the radiation data on AISI-348 is still scarce and, in some cases, not available in the scientific literature. Although there is substantial neutron and ion irradiation data for AISI 316 [48] which is a very similar steel to the AISI-348, the majority of the available data is on lower neutron exposure levels [49][50][51]. We report on the in situ TEM observation of a radiation-induced phase transformation (induced by ion irradiation) in the AISI-348 steel.…”