The Effect of High Pressure Torsion on Irradiation Hardening of Eurofer-97

TL;DR

This study explores how nano-structuring via high-pressure torsion affects irradiation hardening in Eurofer-97, revealing that severe deformation can reduce irradiation-induced hardness increases, potentially improving material performance.

Contribution

It demonstrates that high-pressure torsion-induced nano-structuring can mitigate irradiation hardening in Eurofer-97, a novel approach for enhancing radiation resistance.

Findings

Nanoindentation hardness increases with deformation and irradiation in undeformed material.

Severely deformed material shows less irradiation hardening across damage levels.

Maximum reduction in irradiation hardening occurs at strain range 60 to 160.

Abstract

We investigated the effect of nano-structuring by high-pressure torsion (HPT) on the irradiation performance of Eurofer-97. Material was deformed to shear strains from 0 to ~230, and then exposed to Fe$^{3+}$ irradiation doses of 0.01 and 0.1 displacements-per-atom (dpa). Nanoindentation hardness increases monotonically with deformation, and with irradiation for the undeformed material. For both damage levels, less irradiation hardening is observed in severely deformed material. This effect is most prominent in the strain range ~60 to ~160, suggesting that nano-structuring may provide an approach for reducing irradiation hardening.