Historical review of computer simulation of radiation effects in materials

In this Article, I review the development of computer simulation techniques for studying radiation effects in materials from 1946 until 2018. These developments were often closely intertwined with associated experimental developments, which are also briefly discussed in conjunction with the simulations. The focus is on methods that either deal directly with the primary radiation damage generation event, or with such defects or phase changes that typically occur due to radiation. The methods discussed at some length are, in order of historical appearance: Reaction rate theory or rate equations (RE), Monte Carlo neutronics calculations (MCN), Metropolis Monte Carlo (MMC), Molecular Dynamics (MD), Binary Collision Approximation (BCA), Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC), Discrete Dislocation Dynamics (DDD), Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT), and Finite Element Modelling (FEM). For each method, I present the origins of the methods, some key developments after this, as well as give some opinions on possible future development paths.