Effect of carbon impurity content on microstructural evolution in neutron-irradiated alpha iron; Cluster dynamics modeling

Abe, Yosuke  ; Tsuru, Tomohito   ; Jitsukawa, Shiro

In this study, in addition to adequately model the 1D reaction kinetics of SIA loops in the framework of a production bias model, reaction kinetics associated with carbon impurity atoms present in -iron have been formulated to take into account the trapping effect of glissile SIA loops by vacancy-carbon (V-C) complexes that have been shown to have strong bindings with SIA loops by atomistic simulations. Results of calculated defect accumulation behavior of neutron irradiated -iron show that the developed CD model can successfully reproduce the number densities of SIA loops and vacancy clusters when the applied impurity concentration is the same order as experimental one. This indicates that the assumed mechanism for the trapping of glissile SIA loops by V-C complexes is reasonable. The dependences of irradiation dose, dose rate, and temperature are discussed in detail.