The growth of gas-bubbles by coalescence in solids during continuous gas generation

In order to get some insight into the mode of gas bubble growth during the high temperature irradiation of solids, we have calculated the distributions of bubbles grown by coalescence. The calculations are based on Gruber's coalescence model for annealing which we have extended to the case of an irradiation induced gas generation. The dominant assumption is that the continuously generated inert gas atoms go into new bubbles distributed around small radii. The results show that the bubble growth rate is markedly increased by the irradiation induced gas generation and that the calculated bubble distribution profile exhibits a double peak as often observed experimentally. (orig.)