Radiation induced grain boundary segregation in ferritic/martensitic steels

The radiation induced segregation of Cr at grain boundaries (GBs) in Ferritic/Martensitic steels was modeled assuming vacancy and interstitialcy diffusion mechanisms. In particular, the dependence of segregation on temperature and grain boundary misorientation angle was analyzed. It is found that Cr enriches at grain boundaries at low temperatures primarily through the interstitialcy mechanism while depletes at high temperatures predominantly through the vacancy mechanism. There is a crossover from Cr enrichment to depletion at an intermediate temperature where the Cr:Fe vacancy and interstitialcy diffusion coefficient ratios intersect. The bell-shape Cr enrichment response is attributed to the decreasing void sinks inside the grains as temperature rises. It is also shown that low angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) and special Σ coincidence-site lattice (CSL) grain boundaries exhibit suppressed radiation induced segregation (RIS) response while high angle grain boundaries (HAGBs) have high RIS segregation. This different behavior is attributed to the variations in dislocation density at different grain boundaries.