PNNL

Abstract

High energy particle irradiation of structural polycrystalline materials usually produces irradiation hardening and embrittlement. The development of predict capability for the influence of irradiation on mechanical behavior is very important in materials design for next generation reactors. In this work a multiscale approach was implemented to predict irradiation hardening of body centered cubic (bcc) alpha-iron. The effect of defect density, texture and grain boundary was investigated. In the microscale, dislocation dynamics models were used to predict the critical resolved shear stress from the evolution of local dislocation and defects. In the macroscale, a viscoplastic self-consistent model was applied to predict the irradiation hardening in samples with changes in texture and grain boundary. This multiscale modeling can guide performance evaluation of structural materials used in next generation nuclear reactors.