Ferritic/martensitic steels – overview of recent results

Considerable research work has been conducted on the ferritic/martensitic steels since the last International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials in 1999. Since only a limited amount of that work can be reviewed in this paper, four areas will be emphasized: (1) the international collaboration under the auspices of the International Energy Agency (IEA) to address potential problems with ferri tic/marten si tic steels and to prove their feasibility for fusion, (2) the major uncertainty that remains concerning the effect of transmutation helium on mechanical properties of the steels when irradiated in a fusion neutron environment, (3) development of new reduced-activation steels beyond the F82H and JLF-1 steels studied in the IEA collaboration, and (4) work directed at developing oxide dispersion-strengthened steels for operation above 650degreesC. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.