Vickers hardness change of the Chinese low-activation ferritic/martensitic steel CLF-1irradiated with high-energy heavy ions

摘要

In the present work,the irradiation hardening behavior of a Chinese low-activation ferritic/martensitic steel CLF-1,a candidate for fusion reactor blankets,is studied.Specimens were irradiated with high-energy14N and56Fe ions at the terminal of a cyclotron to three successively increasing damage levels of 0.05,0.1 and 0.2 displacements per atom(dpa)at about-50°C.The energy of the incident ions was dispersed to 11 successively decreasing grades using an energy degrader,thereby generating an atomic displacement damage plateau in the specimens from the surface to a depth of 25μm,which is sufficiently broad for the Vickers hardness test.Eight different loads(i.e.98 mN,196 m N,490 m N,980 m N,1.96 N,4.9 N,9.8 N and 19.6 N)were applied to the specimens to obtain the depth profiles of the Vickers hardness by using a microhardness tester.Hardening was observable at the lowest damage level,and increased with increasing irradiation dose.A power-law correlation of the Vickers hardness with the damage level(HV0=1.49+0.76 dpa0.31)is proposed.Testing with a nano-indentation technique was also performed,and a linear relationship between the Vickers micro-hardness and the nanohardness(HV0=0.83 H0)was observed.A comparison with other RAFM steels(CLAM,JLF-1,F82 H,EUROFER97 etc.)under neutron or charged particle irradiation conditions shows that most of the RAFM steels exhibit similar power-law exponents in the dose dependence of irradiation hardening.The difference in the irradiation hardening may be attributed to differences in microstructure prior to irradiation.