Experimental determination of creep properties of Beryllium irradiated to relevant fusion power reactor doses

Marc Scibetta, Antonio Pellettieri, Leo Sannen, Enrico Lucon

    Research outputpeer-review

    Abstract

    A dead weight machine has been developed to measure creep in irradiated beryllium relevant to fusion power reactors. Due to the external compressive load, the material will creep and the specimen will shrink. However, the specimen also swells due to the combined effect of internal pressure in helium bubbles and creep. One of the major challenges is to unmask swelling and derive intrinsic creep properties. This has been achieved through appropriate pre-annealing experiments. Creep has been measured on irradiated and unirradiated specimens. The temperature and stress dependence is characterized and modeled using the product of an Arrhenius’ law for the temperature dependence and a power law for the stress dependence. Irradiation increases the sensitivity to creep but the irradiation effects can be rationalized by taking into account the irradiation-induced porosity. Experimental evidence supports dislocation climb by vacancy absorption to be the most plausible intrinsic creep mechanism.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1063-1068
    JournalJournal of Nuclear Materials
    Volume367-370
    Issue numberPart 2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Mar 2007
    EventICFRM12 2005 - 12th International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials - US - UCSB, Santa Barbara
    Duration: 4 Dec 20059 Dec 2005

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