Hardening mechanisms of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steels irradiated at 300 C

300度照射された低放射化フェライト鋼における照射硬化現象機構

谷川 博康; Klueh, R. L.*; 橋本 直幸*; Sokolov, M. A.*

Tanigawa, Hiroyasu; Klueh, R. L.*; Hashimoto, Naoyuki*; Sokolov, M. A.*

低放射化フェライト鋼は、573K 5dpaの照射によって、さまざまな照射硬化・照射脆化を示すが、これらの現象は従来考えられてきたような、照射による転位組織発達のみで説明できないことがわかっている。本論文では、F82H, ORNL9Cr、及びJLF-1といった代表的な低放射化フェライト鋼を対象に、詳細な微細組織解析を実施し、その現象解明を試みた。その結果、転位組織変化に加え、主要析出物分布の変化が明らかになったほか、析出物のアモルファス化、及びナノ析出物の生成が明らかになり、これらの現象が、573K熱平衡状態に達しようとする過渡現象として解釈しうる可能性が示された。

It has been reported that reduced-activation ferritic/martensitic steels (RAFMs) showed a variety of changes in ductile-brittle transition temperature and yield stress after irradiation at 573 K up to 5 dpa, and those differences could not be interpreted solely by the difference of dislocation microstructure induced by irradiation. To investigate the impact of other microstructural feature, i.e. precipitates, the precipitation behavior of F82H, ORNL 9Cr-2WVTa, and JLF-1 was examined. It was revealed that irradiation-induced precipitation and amorphization of precipitates partly occurred and caused the different precipitation on block, packet and prior austenitic grain boundaries. In addition to these phenomena, irradiation-induced nano-size precipitates were also observed in the matrix. It was also revealed that the chemical compositions of precipitates approached the calculated thermal equilibrium state of MC at an irradiation temperature of 573 K. Over all, these observations suggests that the variety of embrittlement and hardening of RAFMs observed at 573 K irradiation up to 5 dpa might be the consequence of the transition phenomena that occur as the microstructure approaches thermal equilibrium during irradiation at 573 K.