Positron Annihilation Investigation of Embrittlement Behavior in Chinese RPV Steels after Fe-Ion Irradiation

doi:10.11900/0412.1961.2017.00471

Acta Metall Sin

2018, Vol. 54

Issue (4): 512-518 DOI: 10.11900/0412.1961.2017.00471

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Positron Annihilation Investigation of Embrittlement Behavior in Chinese RPV Steels after Fe-Ion Irradiation

Tianci ZHANG^1,², Haitao WANG¹, Zhengcao LI²(

), Henk SCHUT³, Zhengming ZHANG¹, Ming HE⁴, Yuliang SUN¹

1 Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology, Key Laboratory of Advanced Reactor Engineering and Safety of Ministry of Education, Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2 Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
3 Department of Radiation Science and Technology, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB Delft, Netherlands
4 Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Equipment Co., Ltd., Shanghai 201306, China

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Tianci ZHANG, Haitao WANG, Zhengcao LI, Henk SCHUT, Zhengming ZHANG, Ming HE, Yuliang SUN. Positron Annihilation Investigation of Embrittlement Behavior in Chinese RPV Steels after Fe-Ion Irradiation. Acta Metall Sin, 2018, 54(4): 512-518.

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Abstract

The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is the key component in the nuclear power plant, which is considered irreplaceable and can be the life-limiting feature of the operation of nuclear power plant if its mechanical properties degrade sufficiently. High temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) has perfect inherent safety, which is intended to be one of the fourth generation advanced nuclear reactors. However, HTGR has different service temperature with pressurized water reactor (PWR), that the service temperature of HTGR is 250 ℃ and that of PWR is 290 ℃. So the irradiation behaviour of RPV in HTGR is expected to be investigated. In this wok, 3 MeV Fe-ion irradiation was performed on Chinese A508-3 reactor pressure vessel steel which is employed by high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and pure Fe under room temperature (about 25 ℃) and high temperature (250 ℃). The ion doses were 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 dpa for both room temperature irradiation and high temperature irradiation. SRIM modeling was performed before irradiation experiments to guide the experimental details. Positron annihilation Doppler broadening (PADB) spectroscopy experiments and nano-indentation tests (to study embrittlement behavior) were conducted for characterization. It is found that after both room temperature irradiation and high temperature irradiation, the densities of defects in the reactor pressure vessel steel and pure Fe increase, and the type of defects could be vacancy-type and solute cluster type from PADB results. The vacancy-type defect density under high temperature irradiation is lower than that under room temperature irradiation. That is because high temperature can recover the defects formed during irradiation. The hardness test results show that for both the reactor pressure vessel steel and pure Fe, the irradiation hardening increases with increasing dose. Compared to room temperature irradiation, high temperature irradiation can produce more solute clusters and fewer vacancy-type defects in the reactor pressure vessel steel. So the irradiation hardening of the reactor pressure vessel steel might be caused mainly by the formation of solute clusters.

Key words: Chinese reactor pressure vessel steel irradiation embrittlement positron annihilation high-temperature gas-cooled reactor

Received: 10 November 2017

ZTFLH:

TL341

Fund: Supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (No.2017YFB0702200)

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	Tianci ZHANG
	Haitao WANG
	Zhengcao LI
	Henk SCHUT
	Zhengming ZHANG
	Ming HE
	Yuliang SUN

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https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/10.11900/0412.1961.2017.00471 OR https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/Y2018/V54/I4/512

Fig.1 Damage profile of irradiation calculated by SRIM code

Fig.2 S-parameter of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steel (a) and pure Fe (b) changes with positron energy (E) and depth (D) before and after Fe-ion irradiation (RT—room temperature, HT—high temperature)

Fig.3 ΔS/S_unirr of the RPV steel (a) and pure Fe (b) changes with E and D before and after Fe-ion irradiation (ΔS/S_unirr—ratio of variation of S-parameter before and after irradiation to the S-parameter of unirradiation sample)

Fig.4 S-W parameter results of the RPV steel and pure Fe by VEPFIT

Fig.5 Nano-indentation hardness of the RPV steel (a) and pure Fe (b) changes with depth before and after Fe-ion irradiation

Fig.6 Hardness of the RPV steel and pure Fe changes with irradiation damage before and after Fe-ion irradiation

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