Recent Insights on the Parametric Dependence of Irradiation Creep of Austenitic Stainless Steels

Microchemical and microstructural evolution of AISI 304 stainless steel irradiated in EBR-II at PWR-relevant dpa rates

“…With the exception of test specimens irradiated in various reactors such as BOR-60 [7], Phénix and OSIRIS [8], and BR-2 [9], most of the insight on r adiation damage in this steel has been generated using data derived from examination of structural components and test specimens irradiated in EBR-II [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. For many years, the focus of these studies was primarily on void swelling and irradiation creep, and secondarily on pha se instabilities, which are not as pronounced in 304 stainless steel compared to other austenitic steels such as AISI 316.…”

Irradiation Creep in Materials

“…= 7 + ! [3] From a macroscopic perspective, irradiation creep thus appears to be rather simple (at least from the schematic picture provided above) as pointed out by Garner et al (Garner, et al, 2011). But the microscopic mechanisms at the origin of this behavior are far from being well understood.…”

Stress state dependence of in-reactor creep and swelling. Part 2: Experimental results

“…The 1%/dpa rate has also been shown to be characteristic of 304 stainless steel, although the transient regime is somewhat more curvilinear in this easily swelling steel, compared to more swelling-resistant steels [15,16]. It may be that the irradiated specimens having damage levels greater than 13.5 dpa have not yet achieved steady-state swelling as it has been demonstrated recently that dose rate variations within a data set potentially characteristic of this experiment will produce the appearance of a lower steady-state swelling rate due to progressive shortening of the transient regime at lower dpa rates [17][18][19]. However, for the relatively small re-irradiation dose increments in this test, it may be assumed that a quasi-steadystate has been attained.…”