Microstructural evolution of austenitic stainless steels irradiated in spectrally tailored experiment in ORR at 400deg C

Several different heats of austenitic stainless steel, including Japanese-PCA(JPCA), were irradiated in the spectrally tailored ORR experiment at 400deg C to 7.4 dpa. The levels of helium generated were 155 appm for JPCA (16Ni, 30 wppm B) and 102 appm for standard type 316 steel (13Ni). The mean He:dpa ratio throughout the irradiation falls between 15 and 20 appm He/dpa, which is close to the He/dpa values expected for fusion. Swelling was measured by transmission electron microscopy and by precision immersion densitometry. All the CW alloys showed swelling that was at or below the detection limit of the densitometer (0.1%). No measurable swelling was detected in the SA JPCA alloy, while the highest value of 0.8% was observed in the SA high-purity alloy. One Ti-modified steel with low C also showed a relatively high swelling value of 0.5%, while standard type 316 steel showed only 0.15% swelling. TEM observation gave consistent but slightly larger values of swelling. (orig.)