Swelling and post-irradiated deformation structures in 18Cr–10Ni–Ti irradiated with heavy ions

Abstract The current work presents irradiation microstructure evolution in 18Cr–10Ni–Ti SS after Cr ion irradiation and tensile deformation. TEM and tensile samples were irradiated to a total dose of 1, 5, 10 and 100 dpa with 2 MeV Cr 3+ ions at 305 °C (8 × 10 −4 dpa/s) and 600 °C (10 −2 dpa), respectively. Damage structure at 305 °C consists of high density of black dots, loops, which are less than 10 nm in diameter (1–5 dpa), at saturation number density 2 × 10 22 m −3 . Deformation behavior of irradiated steel is manifested as a transition from twinning to dislocation channeling with test temperature and dose increasing. Damage at 635 °C is a different volumes of swelling: ∼0.2–0.4% at 5 dpa and ∼20% at 100 dpa. Irradiated samples showed a strong role of voids in the matrix and grain boundary fracture processes.