Recent progress in research on China low activation martensitic steel

The Reduced Activation Ferritic/Martensitic steels (RAFMs) are considered as the primary candidate structural material for DEMO and the first fusion plant. China Low Activation Martensitic (CLAM) steel, one version of RAFMs, is being developed in ASIPP (Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) under wide collaboration with many institutes and universities. According to the past results, CLAM has good properties, such as tensile and impact properties before irradiation. Recently, the R and D activities are mainly covering the aspects such as impurities content control of smelting, optimization of main compositions (e.g. Ta), fatigue and creep properties of CLAM, bonding techniques of CLAM/CLAM, coating techniques of Al2O3 on CLAM, corrosion behaviour in flowing LiPb, irradiation behaviour by high energy electrons, H/He beam and by neutrons from fission reactors etc.. This paper summarized the recent progress on CLAM. The further research and development, and the prospects on its application were also stated. (authors)