Abstract
Temperature- and irradiation-assisted failure mechanisms in miscible phase boundaries are clarified via atomistic calculations. We first establish the temperature-dependent brittle-to-ductile transition in U–Zr miscible phase boundaries. Our results confirm that these boundaries are mostly brittle at low temperatures and ductile at elevated temperatures. We then investigate the changes induced by irradiation on the fracture mechanisms in such phase boundaries. The irradiation-induced defect accumulation follows a multi-stage process that starts with the accumulation of isolated small dislocation loops before transitioning to the saturation and growth of larger dislocation loops and end up with a reorganization into forest dislocations. The accumulation of loops is the primary feature to participate in the delineation between brittle and ductile interfacial fracture in irradiated phase boundaries. At low damage levels, radiation defect interactions with the crack tip are limited and U–Zr miscible boundaries fail through the emission of dislocations ahead of the crack tip followed by brittle cleavage in agreement with the classical Griffith’s criterion for crack stability. At higher damage levels, the failure mode transitions from brittle crack growth to ductile void growth. In this case, the microcrack tip is blunted by the high density of pre-existing, radiation-induced defects in the vicinity of the crack. This interaction leads to the development and growth of a cavity at the interface as opposed to interfacial cleavage.
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Acknowledgements
R.D. is supported by the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, an Office of Science user facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy. C.D. and E.C. are supported by the Woodruff Faculty Fellowship at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Sandia Academic Alliance program. Additionally, C.D. acknowledges funding received from the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program. Computational capabilities were supported by the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, an Office of Science user facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of the US DOE or the US Government.
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Dingreville, R., Chen, E.Y. & Deo, C. Temperature and radiation effects on brittle versus ductile fracture behavior in miscible phase boundaries: insight from atomistic simulations. Int J Fract 228, 1–13 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10704-020-00502-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10704-020-00502-x