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Neutron irradiation effects on mechanical properties of ITER specification tungsten

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Abstract

In this contribution, we present the results of recent neutron irradiation campaign performed in the material test reactor BR2 (Belgium) on pure tungsten. We have applied various irradiation conditions and sample geometry to assess the effect of neutron irradiation on hardness, bending, tensile and fracture mechanical properties. The investigated material is a commercially pure tungsten plate fabricated according to the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) specification for the application in the divertor plasma-facing components. The neutron irradiation covers a large span of temperatures and damage doses, ranging from 600 to 1200 °C and 0.1–1 dpa. The obtained mechanical properties were analyzed to deduce the shift of the ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT) applying bending, tensile and fracture toughness-testing procedures. Then, a correlation of the fracture toughness with the change of the hardness was established. The obtained results are compared with the already published results on another ITER specification grade produced in the form of a rod. The presented and discussed results show that the performance of the compared grades in terms of the irradiation-induced embrittlement is similar, and that the irradiation in the high-temperature region (600–800 °C) causes a considerable DBTT shift already at 0.2–0.5 dpa.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014–2018 and 2019–2020 under grant agreement No 633053. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the ITER Organization or of the European Commission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Structural Materials Group, Institute of Nuclear Materials Science, Belgian Nuclear Research Center, 2400, Mol, Belgium

    Dmitry Terentyev, Chih-Cheng Chang, Chao Yin & A. Zinovev

  2. Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering, UCLouvain, 1348, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Chih-Cheng Chang

  3. School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Chao Yin

  4. China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, 102413, China

    Xin-Fu He

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  1. Dmitry Terentyev
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  3. Chao Yin
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  4. A. Zinovev
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  5. Xin-Fu He
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Contributions

Dmitry Terentyev conceived the idea, wrote the manuscript, performed investigation; Chih-Cheng Chang, A. Zinovev, Chao Yin, Xin-Fu He performed investigation and post processing of experimental data. All authors contributed to the scientific discussions and reviewed the manuscipt.

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Correspondence to Dmitry Terentyev.

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Terentyev, D., Chang, CC., Yin, C. et al. Neutron irradiation effects on mechanical properties of ITER specification tungsten. Tungsten 3, 415–433 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42864-021-00105-6

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