Role of interstitial and interstitial-impurity interaction on irradiation-induced segregation in austenitic steels

Segregation under irradiation in austenitic steels is due to a permanent flux of vacancies and interstitials produced by irradiation towards sinks like surfaces and interfaces. A model based on a mean field lattice rate theory is proposed where kinetics and thermodynamics are treated in a mutually consistent way. For a Fe-Ni-Cr ternary alloy, the 15 parameters defining the jump frequencies of vacancies were fitted on equilibrium properties including ordering energies and tracer diffusion experiments with no use of segregation data. Measurements of RIS by Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) were used in the last step of the fitting procedure in order to choose the best set of the 27 interstitial jump frequencies. This fitting procedure strongly supports the idea that the interstitials are contributing to RIS in Fe-Cr-Ni alloys. The authors also simulate the trapping of interstitials by an impurity model and reproduce the total inhibition of RIS by this impurity as observed experimentally