International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Research Applications and Utilization of Accelerators

4-8 May 2009, Vienna

Improving Resistance of Austenitic Stainless Steel to Irradiation Damage

P. Ahmedabadi¹, Vivekanand Kain¹, G. K. Dey¹ and I. Samajdar², S. C. Sharma³, P. Bhagwat³, and S. Kailas³

¹Materials Science Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India
²Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India
³Nuclear Physics Division, BARC, India

Corresponding Author: id.parag@gmail.com

It is believed that the addition of oversized solute atoms disturbs the process of recombination, agglomeration, and migration of point defects during irradiation process and thereby alters radiation damage, including radiation induced segregation. In this study, austenitic stainless steel (SS) 316 samples with different Ce content (0.00, 0.01, 0.04 and 0.09 wt% Ce) were irradiated using 4.8 MeV protons at 300ºC to the total fluence of 9.724×10¹⁷ p/cm². Irradiated samples were characterized using double-loop electrochemical potentiokinetic reactivation (DL-EPR) technique for the extent of RIS due to proton irradiation. It was found that the sample with 0.04 wt% Ce content showed the lowest EPR value, as measured by DL-EPR. It was also noticed that the slip lines were get preferentially attacked vis-à-vis grain boundaries. SS 316 Ce 0.09 wt% sample did not have any slip-lines and attack during the DL-EPR was confined to grain boundaries and few pitlike
structures were noticed during AFM examinations.

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