High Temperature Deformation Processes in Additively Manufactured 316L Stainless Steel

摘要

Type 316 austenitic stainless steel (SS) is one of the most widely used structural materials in various types of nuclear reactors including current nuclear power plants and next-generation advanced nuclear reactor concepts, e.g. sodium-cooled fast reactors, molten-salt reactors, and gas-cooled reactors. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a disruptive manufacturing technology. It has opened up unprecedented opportunities for designing next-generation advanced 316 SS with controlled microstructure and has enabled smart designs of reactor structural components with complex geometries and design freedom. Previous studies have shown that AM 316 SS has significantly improved yield and tensile strength combined with good ductility than wrought 316 SS at low temperatures [1-3]. The high-temperature mechanical performance of AM 316 SS is being evaluated for its high temperature structural applications. This paper summaries the recent effort on investigating the high-temperature mechanical behavior of AM 316L SS for its core structural applications in the Transformational Challenge Reactor, a gas-cooled microreactor being developed to demonstrate revolutionary technologies including additive manufacturing [4,5].