Comparison of the Relative Importance of Helium and Vacancy Accumulation in Void Nucleation

摘要

Void nucleation in irradiated austenitic stainless steels generally requires the presence of either residual or transmutant gases. Classical nucleation rates are much too low to account for the number of voids observed at temperatures greater than about 450 deg C. An alternate path is generally believed to be responsible for void formation; viz. the growth of gas-stabilized bubbles until they reach a critical size beyond which further gas accumulation is not required to promote growth. Two limiting paths can be envisioned for void nucleation on a population of sub-critical helium/vacancy clusters; one is limited to growth by helium accumulation along and the other to growth by stochastic fluctuations in the vacancy accumulation. As bubbles approach the critical size, stochastic processes could begin to contribute to the void nucleation rate. A comparison is made of nucleation rates along these two limiting paths as a function of the gas content of the clusters. (ERA citation 12:000728)