Hardness Tests on Irradiated Pressure Vessel Steel

摘要

This investigation can be summarized by the following conclusions: the three heats of pressure vessel steel all showed, approximately, a 10% increase in the average weld metal hardness when irradiated to a fluence of about 1 x 10 exp 18 n/cm exp 2 , E > MeV; the activation energy, as determined by the Meechan-Brinkman method, for the recovery of radiation induced hardness was found to be 0.60 +- 0.06 eV; and the activation energy of 0.6 eV is approximately equal to that calculated for vacancy migration in alpha iron, suggesting that the radiation-produced defect clusters are vacancy in nature. (ERA citation 06:015821)