Microstructure-dependent rate theory model of defect segregation and phase stability in irradiated polycrystalline LiAlO2

Gamma lithium aluminate (LiAlO2) is a breeder material for tritium and is one of key components in a tritium-producing burnable absorber rod (TPBAR). Dissolution and precipitation of second phases such as LiAl5O8 and voids are observed in irradiated LiAlO2. Such microstructure changes cause the degradation of thermomechanical properties of LiAlO2 and affect tritium retention and release kinetics, and hence, the TPBAR performance. In this work, a microstructure-dependent model of radiation-induced segregation (RIS) has been developed for investigating the accumulation of species and phase stability in polycrystalline LiAlO2 structures under irradiation. Three sublattices (i.e., [Li, Al, V]I [O, Vo]II [Lii, Ali, Oi, Vi]III), and concentrations of six diffusive species (i.e., Li; vacancy of Li or Al at [Li, Al, V]I sublattice, O vacancy at [O, Vo]II sublattice, and Li, Al and O interstitials at [Lii, Ali, Oi, Vi]III interstitial sublattices; are used to describe spatial and temporal distributions of defects and chemistry. Microstructure-dependent thermodynamic and kinetic properties including the generation, reaction, and chemical potentials of defects and defect mobility are taken into account in the model. The parametric studies demonstrated the capability of the developed RIS model to assess the effect of thermodynamic and kinetic properties of defects on the segregation and depletion of species in polycrystalline structures and to explain the phase stability observed in irradiated LiAlO2 samples. The developed RIS model will be extended to study the precipitation of LiAl5O8 and voids and tritium retention by integrating the phase-field method.

Structural manifestation of partial proton ordering and defect mobility in ice Ih

High precision lattice-parameter measurements provide a potential roadmap to producing partially-ordered states of water ice.

Theory of Doping in Studies of Defect Concentration and Transport Properties of Transition Metal Oxides and Sulphides

In the present paper the theoretical basis and experimental verification of a method, enabling the calculation of defect concentration and their mobility in transition metal oxides and sulphides have been described. The idea of proposed method consists in determination of both these parameters in indirect way, i.e. in studying the influence of aliovalent metallic additions on the oxidation kinetics of a given metal (doping effect). It has been shown that from the results of oxidation kinetics of binary alloys, the enthalpy and entropy of defect formation and their migration can be calculated. These data, in turn, can be used for the calculation of defect concentration and defect mobility in pure, undoped oxides. Such a possibility has been illustrated on the example of nonstoichiometric nickel oxide, Ni

In-situ annealing of self-ion irradiation damage in tungsten

ABSTRACTIn our earlier work [1] microstructural evolution in tungsten under self-ion irradiation was investigated as a function of temperature and dose by in-situ 150 keV W+ ion irradiations on the IVEM-Tandem facility at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). The present work focuses on the thermal stability of this damage. Thin foils of tungsten were irradiated at room temperature (R.T.) to fluences up to 1018 W+m-2 (∼ 1.0 dpa) and were then annealed in-situ for up to 120 min at temperatures between 300 and 800°C.We found that: (1) loops with Burgers vectors ½ <111> and <100> coexist during annealing; (2) <100> is not a stable loop configuration above 300°C and the fraction of such loops decreased with increasing temperature and/or time; (3) changes in loop populations during annealing were very sensitive to temperature, but less sensitive to time. The majority of changes occurred within 15 min, and were associated with the loss of small (1-2 nm) dislocation loops. The origin of these trends is discussed by considering defect mobility and the energetics of defect configurations predicted by previous DFT calculations [2].

Relaxation Processes at High Temperature in TiAl-Nb-Mo Intermetallics

ABSTRACTIn the last decades there was a growing interest in developing new light-weight intermetallic alloys, which are able to substitute the heavy superalloys at a certain temperature range. At present a new Ti-Al-Nb-Mo family, called TNM™ alloys, is being optimized to fulfill the challenging requirements. The aim of the present work was to study the microscopic mechanisms of defect mobility at high temperature in TNM alloys in order to contribute to the understanding of their influence on the mechanical properties and hence to promote the further optimization of these alloys. Mechanical spectroscopy has been used to study the internal friction and the dynamic modulus up to 1460 K of a TNM alloy under different thermal treatments. These measurements allow to follow the microstructural evolution during in-situ thermal treatments. A relaxation process has been observed at about 1050 K and was characterized as a function of temperature and frequency in order to obtain the activation parameters of the responsible mechanism. In particular, the activation enthalpy has been determined to be H= 3 eV. The results are discussed and an atomic mechanism is proposed to explain the observed relaxation process.