NSUF 11-314: Microstructural Study of Ion Irradiated 14LMT Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys

Nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFA) have shown outstanding high temperature tensile and creep strength, and great potential for enhanced radiation damage tolerance. The excellent properties of NFAs primarily derive from the presence of fine Y-Ti-O based nanofeatures. A new NFA alloy form based on lanthana (lanthanum oxide)is being developed under a project funded by INL/CAES-LDRD, using a processing route involving mechanical alloying followed by spark plasma sintering. The aim of this research is to demonstrate that the alloy processed through SPS may have similar or better properties compared with traditionally processed NFAs. Hence, it is essential to characterize the alloy to a very fine detail that requires the use of state-of-the-art characterization tools. The alloy produced will be heavy ion irradiated under different sets of conditions. The microstructure of the alloy before and after irradiation will be characterized using TEM and APT to understand the formation of La-Ti-O based nanofeatures, with EBSD to understand microtexture. Further, nanoindentation will be performed on irradiated samples to get a measure of the radiation hardening. The whole project is expected to be completed within a period of 2-3 months. The data generated in this work will be disseminated widely through journal and conference publications.

Additional Info

Field	Value
Abstract	Nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFA) have shown outstanding high temperature tensile and creep strength, and great potential for enhanced radiation damage tolerance. The excellent properties of NFAs primarily derive from the presence of fine Y-Ti-O based nanofeatures. A new NFA alloy form based on lanthana (lanthanum oxide)is being developed under a project funded by INL/CAES-LDRD, using a processing route involving mechanical alloying followed by spark plasma sintering. The aim of this research is to demonstrate that the alloy processed through SPS may have similar or better properties compared with traditionally processed NFAs. Hence, it is essential to characterize the alloy to a very fine detail that requires the use of state-of-the-art characterization tools. The alloy produced will be heavy ion irradiated under different sets of conditions. The microstructure of the alloy before and after irradiation will be characterized using TEM and APT to understand the formation of La-Ti-O based nanofeatures, with EBSD to understand microtexture. Further, nanoindentation will be performed on irradiated samples to get a measure of the radiation hardening. The whole project is expected to be completed within a period of 2-3 months. The data generated in this work will be disseminated widely through journal and conference publications.
Award Announced Date	2011-06-23T00:00:00
Awarded Institution	None
Facility	None
Facility Tech Lead	Yaqiao Wu
Irradiation Facility	None
PI	Indrajit Charit
PI Email	[email protected]
Project Type	RTE
RTE Number	314