Radiation Damage Studies in ODS alloys

 

Swelling in ferritic steels is less as compared to austenitic steels. However high temperature application of these steels is limited because of the poor creep strength of ferritic steels at elevated temperatures. To increase the upper limit of operating temperature of ferritic steels these steels are dispersed with nanosized oxide particles. Such Oxide dispersed Strengthened (ODS) stainless steels are considered as promising material for future cladding material of the liquid metal fast reactor and first wall of the fusion reactors. Hence Radiation Damage studies of ODS steels becomes important.

 

Owing to high thermodynamic stability of yttrium oxide nano-particles these are dispersed in the ODS alloys. A model ODS alloy to be studied with the composition of Fe- 0.3 Y₂O₃ % is synthesized. The nano-oxide Y₂O₃ particles before the synthesis of model ODS alloy were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Particle sizes of the oxide particles measured using TEM and XRD were corroborated. TEM results revealed that the nano sized particles were almost spherical in shape.