Mechanical properties of irradiated multi-phase polycrystalline BCC materials

Structure materials under severe irradiations in nuclear environments are known to degrade because of irradiation hardening and loss of ductility,resulting from irradiation-induced defects such as vacancies,interstitials and dislocation loops,etc.In this paper,we develop an elastic-viscoplastic model for irradiated multi-phase polycrystalline BCC materials in which the mechanical behaviors of individual grains and polycrystalline aggregates are both explored.At the microscopic grain scale,we use the internal variable model and propose a new tensorial damage descriptor to represent the geometry character of the defect loop,which facilitates the analysis of the defect loop evolutions and dislocation-defect interactions.At the macroscopic polycrystal scale,the self-consistent scheme is extended to consider the multiphase problem and used to bridge the individual grain behavior to polycrystal properties.Based on the proposed model,we found that the work-hardening coefficient decreases with the increase of irradiation-induced defect loops,and the orientation/loading dependence of mechanical properties is mainly attributed to the different Schmid factors.At the polycrystalline scale,numerical results for pure Fe match well with the irradiation experiment data.The model is further extended to predict the hardening effect of dispersoids in oxide-dispersed strengthened steels by the considering the Orowan bowing.The influences of grain size and irradiation are found to compete to dominate the strengthening behaviors of materials.

Modeling core-spreading of interface dislocation and its elastic response in anisotropic bimaterial

Interracial dislocation may have a spreading core corresponding to a weak shear resistance of interfaces. In this paper, a conic model is proposed to mimic the spreading core of interfacial dislocation in anisotropic bimaterials. By the Stroh formalism and Green＇s function, the analytical expressions of the elastic fields are deduced for such a dislocation. Taking Cu/Nb bimaterial as an example, it is demonstrated that the accuracy and efficiency of the method are well validated by the interface conditions, a spreading core can greatly reduce the stress intensity near the interfacial dislocation compared with the compact core, and the elastic fields near the spreading core region are significantly different from the condensed core, while they are less sensitive to a field point that is 1.5 times the core width away from the center of the spreading core.

Theoretical models for irradiation hardening and embrittlement in nuclear structural materials:a review and perspective

The study of irradiation hardening and embrittlement is critically important for the development of next-generation structural materials tolerant to neutron irradiation,and could dramatically affect the approach to the design of components for advanced nuclear reactors.In addition,a growing interest is observed in the field of research and development of irradiation-resistant materials.This review aims to provide an overview of the theoretical development related to irradiation hardening and embrittlement at moderate irradiation conditions achieved in recent years,which can help extend our fundamental knowledge on nuclear structural materials.After a general introduction to the irradiation effects on metallic materials,recent research progress covering theoretical modelling is summarized for different types of structural materials.The fundamental mechanisms are elucidated within a wide range of temporal and spatial scales.This review closes with the current understanding of irradiation hardening and embrittlement,and puts some perspectives deserving further study.

An approach to calculate surface effects of polyhedron nanocrystals and its application in silicon nanowires

A stretch-release strategy is proposed to analyze the problem of surface energy-induced stress fields in nanocrystals,which is resolved into a stretch sub-problem and a release sub-problem using the superposition principle.The surface effect of silicon nanowires with hexagonal cross-sections is analyzed by the proposed method.The severe stress concentration near the triple junctions of the wire surfaces and the large shear stress on the plane{111}is quantified,which provides a solid mechanical explanation for the kink phenomena in growth transition from direction〈111〉to〈112〉observed in experiments.Different from the conventional view of negligible surface effect for bulk material,we found that there exists a size-independent part of the surface effect on the stress in the order of tens or hundreds of mega Pascal,which corresponds to the stretch-induced biaxial stress in the surface layer and the shape influence of the geometry of nanocrystals.This size-independent part could well explain the size-independent kinking phenomenon during the growth of silicon nanowires.