Simulation of the irradiation effect on hardness of Chinese HTGR A508-3 steels with CPFEM

Abstract

Understanding the irradiation hardening effect of structural steels under various irradiation conditions plays an important role in developing advanced nuclear systems. Such being the case, a crystal plasticity model for body-centered cubic (BCC) crystal based on the density of dislocations and irradiation defects is summarized and numerically implemented in this paper. Based on this model, nano-indentation hardness of Chinese A508-3 steels with ion irradiation is calculated. Very good agreement is observed between simulation and experimental data of several different irradiation doses subjected to various operating temperatures, from which, it can be concluded that indentation hardness increases with increasing irradiation dose at both room temperature and high temperature. Consequently, the validity of this model has been proved properly, and furthermore, the model established in this paper could guide the study of irradiation hardening effect and temperature effect to some extent.