Effects of irradiation on ceramics for fusion-reactor applications

The purpose of this study, coordinated with efforts of LANL and Grumman Aircraft, was to lay some basic groundwork to study the irradiation effects on the engineering properties of some useful classes of ceramic materials; ANL's efforts were pointed towards multiphase materials (glass ceramics and partially-stabilized zirconias). The materials were irradiated at 400 and 5500C to fast (E > 0.1 MeV) neutron fluences of approx. 2 x 1022n/cm2. Fluorophlogapite mica based glass ceramics (Macor, etc.) were found susceptible to weakening due to void formtion between mica plates. Composition variations within this class of glass ceramics seemed to cause sharp variations in the magnitude of the effect. Lithium silicate glass ceramic (ReX) showed sharp contrasts between the effects of ionization irradiation and displacement damage, neutron irradiation having little effect on the ReX structure while electron irradiation creating lithium silicate vitrification and rapid structural annealing