Simulation of small vacancy dusters and their growth mechanism in chromium and α-iron

New pair potential of interatomic interaction for α-Fe and Cr, which takes account of distortion of Cauchy equation and combines positive features of previous empirical potentials, is developed. Structure-energy characteristics of bi-, tri- and tetravacancies in Cr and α-Fe are calculated using molecular dynamics method. Formula to evaluate binding energy of big vacancy clusters is suggested. Experimental data on study of vacancy masses in the irradiated chromium are presented