ASTM STP 1447 Effects of Radiation on Materials: 21st International Symposium
ASTM STP 1447 is offered by IHS as part of an online subscription to the Special Technical Publications Library.
You may also purchase this publication alone from the IHS Standards Store.
Grossbeck ML
This STP contains 59 papers presented at the Symposium on Effects of Radiation on Materials held in June of 2002. ASTM International Committee E 10 on Nuclear Technology and Applications served as sponsor. Sources outside the United States provided 25 of the papers.
The topics presented at the symposium showed the renewed emphasis in austenitic stainless steels in this area. This class of alloys is again being considered for fuel cladding in advanced reactors. In addition, stainless steels are studied as model alloys for radiation effects on diffusion, elemental segregation and formation of radiation-induced phases.
Reduced neutron activation for fusion reactor structural materials has spurred interest in vanadium alloys and ferritic steels designed for reduced neutron activation. Of special interest is the discovery that such steels can be made without sacrifice of properties. On the contrary, new research has led to the development of reduced activation steels with enhanced irradiation properties over previously used alloys. Research efforts continue in the area of ceramic and composite materials for advanced structural applications and for waste encapsulation.
The primary focus of the symposium remained pressure vessel steels, with a total of 35 presentations, 21 of which are included in these proceedings. In addition to dedicated sessions on the mechanical properties, fracture toughness, and microstructure of irradiated reactor pressure steels, numerous papers on related subjects were integrated into the remaining conference sessions on fundamental mechanisms.
A related session on studies in model alloys also contained valuable information about radiation effects in a variety of Fe-Cu alloys. The increasing sophistication of microstructural examination techniques such as positron annihilation and atom probe temography revealed detail about the radiation induced features that cause embrittlement in these steels. New embrittlement prediction curves based on the knowledge gained from the microstructural studies were the topic of other papers.
Increased understanding of the primary irradiation effects in steels has made it possible to look more closely at the secondary effects, such as pre-irradiation stress relief, thermal neutron embrittlement, and dose rate effects. Engineers and researchers working in the nuclear industry will find useful information regarding a variety of topics in this STP including:
- martensitic transformations
- neutron irradiation
- helium implanted stainless steels
- fracture toughness
- atom probe characterization
- highly embrittled reactor pressure vessel (RPV) welds
- reactor pressure vessel steels
- ductile fracture strain
- fracture toughness
- irradiated austenitic stainless steels
- re-embrittlement rate
- through-wall attenuation
- Charpy embrittlement correlation
- adjusted reference temperature for RPV fracture toughness
- oxide particle stability
- void swelling
- PWR-relevant displacement rates
- bubble microstructures
- creep deformation