Primary radiation damage in materials

Nordlund, K.*; Sand, A. E.*; Granberg, F.*; Zinkle, S. J.*; Stoller, R.*; Averback, R. S.*; Suzudo, Tomoaki; Malerba, L.*; Banhart, F.*; Weber, W. J.*; et al.

NEA/NSC/DOC(2015)9 (Internet), 86 Pages, 2015/00

https://www.oecd-nea.org/globalsearch/download.php?doc=79062

Within this report, we review the current understanding of primary radiation damage from neutrons, ions and electrons with emphasis on the range of validity of the dpa concept in all main classes of materials, and in particular discuss known shortcomings. We recognise that the current NRT-dpa standard is fully valid in the sense of a scaled radiation exposure measure, as it is essentially proportional to the radiation energy deposited per volume. As such, it is highly recommended to be used in reporting neutron damage results to enable comparison between different nuclear reactor environments and ion irradiations. However, in the sense of a measure of damage production the NRT-dpa value has several well-known problems. We discuss this matter and propose an improved dpa definition.