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Effects of carbonitrides and carbides on microstructure and properties of castable nanostructured alloys...

Publication Type
Journal
Journal Name
Journal of Nuclear Materials
Publication Date
Page Number
152376
Volume
540

To develop advanced reduced-activation ferritic-martensitic (RAFM) steels for fusion reactor structural applications, both carbonitride- and carbide-strengthened castable nanostructured alloys (CNAs) were explored for higher densities of MX (M = Ti/Ta/V/etc. and X = C/N) nanoprecipitates. Systematic comparisons between the two types of CNAs indicated generally similar microstructures and comparable tensile properties and creep resistance. However, the carbide-CNAs did show some advantages over the carbonitride-CNAs in terms of the uniformly distributed higher density of MC nanoprecipitates, greater Charpy impact upper shelf energies, less deuterium retention and swelling, and potentially less transmutation-induced composition changes and consequently thermodynamically more stable carbides. The carbide-CNAs showed the best-balanced high performance in the examined properties, in contrast to the significantly varied performance of oxide-dispersion-strengthened alloys and the generally lower performance of current RAFM steels.