Irradiation effects on precipitation in reduced-activation ferritic/martensitic steels

Tanigawa, Hiroyasu; Sakasegawa, Hideo*   ; Klueh, R. L.*

The effects of irradiation on precipitation of reduced-activation ferritic/martensitic steels (RAFs) were investigated, and its impacts on the Charpy impact properties and tensile properties were discussed. It was previously reported that RAFs (F82H-IEA and its heat treatment variant, ORNL9Cr-2WVTa, JLF-1 and 2%Ni doped F82H) shows variety of changes on its ductile-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) and yield stress after irradiation at 573K up to 5dpa. These differences could not be interpreted as an effect of irradiation hardening caused by dislocation loop formation. The precipitation behavior of the irradiated steels was examined by weight analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis and chemical analysis on extraction residues. These analyses suggested that irradiation caused (1) the increase of the amount of precipitates (mainly MC), (2) increase of Cr and decrease of W contained in precipitates, (3) disappearance of MX (TaC) in ORNL9Cr and JLF-1.