Basic process of irradiation softening

The authors have been engaged in research that uses the Johnson-Wilson potential (i.e., potential between two bodies) to analyze the interaction between the core of a spiral dislocation and point defects (interstitial atoms) under stress. Metals with the body-centered cubic structure, however, have covalent bonding nature and multi-body effects of d-electrons cannot be ignored. In the present work, the N-body potential, which takes into account such multi-body effects of d-electrons, is compared with the Johnson-Wilson potential. Compared to the Johnson-Wilson potential, the N-body potential suffers a considerably smaller misfit energy and allows computer simulation of the interaction to be performed at an external force level closer to that used in measurement. Low-stress, long-period relaxation causes pipe diffusion of <111> crowdions. This causes the expansion of ''three-kink configuration'', leading to hardening. As a result of the pipe diffusion, <111> crowdions are absorbed into spiral dislocations and released out of the crystal. It has been reported that during a tensile test at 77 K, irradiated samples are softened at the yield point and the degree of softening recovers as the strain increases. This also supports the idea that the number of defects decreases due to the interaction between dislocations and interstitial atoms. (Nogami, K.)