Effects of Microstructural Factors on Irradiation Growth in Zirconium-Base Alloys

Abstract

The effects of microstructural factors on irradiation growth of zirconium-base alloys have been evaluated on the basis of a growth model in which point defects parameters obtained by molecular dynamics are used. Comparison of experimental data on specimens with well-defined microstructures and the calculated results of these data have confirmed predictive capability of the model. The calculated results show that irradiation growth could be reduced by the factors such as (1) an increase of the grain size, (2) a reduction of the grain aspect ratio, or (3) a decrease of the dislocation density.