Microstructure of austenitic stainless steels irradiated at 400°C in the ORR and the HFIR spectral tailoring experiment

Abstract Microstructural evolution in solution-annealed Japanese-PCA (JPCA-SA) and four other austenitic stainless steels, irradiated at 400°C to 17.3 dpa in the ORR and the high flux isotope reactor (HFIR) spectrally tailored experiment, were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The mean He/dpa ratio throughout the irradiation fell between 12 and 16 appm He/dpa , which is close to the He/dpa values expected for fusion. In all the specimens, a bi-modal size distribution of cavities was observed and the number densities were about 1.0×10 22 m −3 . There was no significant difference between the number densities in the different alloys, although the root mean cubes of the cavity radius are quite different for each alloy. Precipitates of the MC type were also observed in the matrix and on grain boundaries in all alloys except a high-purity (HP) ternary alloy. The JPCA-SA (including 0.06% carbon and 0.027% phosphorus) and standard type 316 steel (including 0.06% carbon and 0.028% phosphorus) showed quite low-swelling values of about 0.016 and 0.015%, respectively, while a HP ternary austenitic alloy showed the highest swelling value of 2.9%. This suggests that the existence of impurities affects the cavity growth in austenitic stainless steels even at 400°C.