Structural materials for the next generation nuclear reactors - an overview

The Generation-IV reactors need to withstand much higher temperatures, greater neutron doses, severe corrosive environment and above all, a substantially higher life time (60 years or more). Hence for their successful deployment, a significant research in structural materials is needed. Various potential candidate materials, such as austenitic stainless steels, oxide-dispersion strengthened steels, nickel-base superalloys, refractory alloys etc. are considered. Both baseline and irradiated mechanical, thermophysical and chemical properties are important. However, due to the longer high temperature exposure involved in most designs, creep and corrosion/oxidation will become the major performance limiting factors. In this study we did not cover fabricability and weldability of the candidate materials. Pros and cons of each candidate can be summarized as following: -) for austenitic stainless steel: lower thermal creep resistance at higher temperatures but poor swelling resistance at high temperatures; -) for ferritic-martensitic steels: excellent swelling resistance at higher burnups but thermal creep strength is limited at higher temperatures and radiation embrittlement at low temperature; -) for Ni-base alloys: excellent thermal creep resistance at higher temperatures but radiation embrittlement even at moderate doses and helium embrittlement at higher temperatures; and -) for refractory alloys: adequate swelling resistance up to high burnups but fabrication difficulties, low temperature radiation hardening and poor oxidation resistance