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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 649 records · Page 36
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Simulation of the Impact of Point Defects and Edge Dislocations on X-Ray Diffraction in Hexagonal (Ni,Co) 1+2 x Ti 1– x O 3 Thin Films

In this work, a computer code for simulating high-resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD) data from disordered crystals with arbitrary spatial composition and local lattice parameters is developed. Simulated patterns are compared with the experimental data collected on a single phase, highly crystalline (Ni 0.42 Co 0.58 ) 2.22 Ti 0.39 O 3 solid-solution thin film exhibiting a large number of subsidiary minima. As a case study, the edge dislocations in hexagonal (Ni,Co) 3 O 3 thin films with Burgers vector parallel and perpendicular to the a-axis and c-axis, respectively, are modeled. No peak profiles are assumed and thus issues related to profile fitting are avoided. Both macroscopic features, such as film thickness, and atomic-scale structure, such as dislocations, are simultaneously modeled. Simulations are run on a desktop machine. Commonly applied database-based phase identification routines can result in wrong phase identification, unless intensities are properly modeled. Modeling tools of diffractometer manufacturers are compared with the present approach. An example of how simulated reciprocal lattice patterns can be used to choose relevant measurement geometries in defected thin films is given.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Toward Superb Perovskite Oxide Electrocatalysts: Engineering of Coupled Nanocomposites

Abstract A significant issue that bedeviled the commercialization of renewable energy technologies, ranging from low‐temperature water electrolyzers to high‐temperature solid oxide cells, is the lack of high‐performance catalysts. Among various candidates that could tackle such a challenge, perovskite oxides are rising‐star materials because of their unique structural and compositional flexibility. However, single‐phase perovskite oxides are challenging to satisfy all the requirements of electrocatalysts concurrently for practical applications, such as high catalytic activity, excellent stability, good ionic and electronic conductivities, and superior chemical/thermo‐mechanical robustness. Impressively, perovskite oxides with coupled nanocomposites are emerging as a novel form offering multifunctionality due to their intrinsic features, including infinite interfaces with solid interaction, tunable compositions, flexible configurations, and maximum synergistic effects between assorted components. Considering this new configuration has attracted great attention owing to its promising performances in various energy‐related applications, this review timely summarizes the leading‐edge development of perovskite oxide‐based coupled nanocomposites. Their state‐of‐art synthetic strategies are surveyed and highlighted, their unique structural advantages are highlighted and illustrated through the typical oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reactions in both high and low‐temperature applications. Opinions on the current critical scientific issues and opportunities in this burgeoning research field are all provided.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2024

Creation of Multi-Principal Element Alloy NiCoCr Nanostructures via Nanosecond Laser-Induced Dewetting

The multi-principal element alloy nanoparticles (MPEA NPs), a new class of nanomaterials, present a highly rewarding opportunity to explore new or vastly different functional properties than the traditional mono/bi/multimetallic nanostructures due to their unique characteristics of atomic-level homogeneous mixing of constituent elements in the nanoconfinements. Here, in this paper, the successful creation of NiCoCr nanoparticles, a well-known MPEA system is reported, using ultrafast nanosecond laser-induced dewetting of alloy thin films. Nanoparticle formation occurs by spontaneously breaking the energetically unstable thin films in a melt state under laser-induced hydrodynamic instability and subsequently accumulating in a droplet shape via surface energy minimization. While NiCoCr alloy shows a stark contrast in physical properties compared to individual metallic constituents, i.e., Ni, Co, and Cr, yet the transient nature of the laser-driven process facilitates a homogeneous distribution of the constituents (Ni, Co, and Cr) in the nanoparticles. Using high-resolution chemical analysis and scanning nanodiffraction, the environmental stability and grain arrangement in the nanoparticles are further investigated. Thermal transport simulations reveal that the ultrashort (≈100 ns) melt-state lifetime of NiCoCr during the dewetting event helps retain the constituent elements in a single-phase solid solution with homogenous distribution and opens the pathway to create the unique MPEA nanoparticles with laser-induced dewetting process.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

N‐Doping Effects On Electrocatalytic Water Splitting of Non‐Noble High‐Entropy Alloy Nanoparticles Prepared by Inert Gas Condensation

Abstract The unique catalytic activities of high‐entropy alloys (HEAs) emerge from the complex interaction among different elements in a single‐phase solid solution. As a “green” nanofabrication technique, inert gas condensation (IGC) combined with laser source opens up a highly efficient avenue to develop HEA nanoparticles (NPs) for catalysis and energy storage. In this work, the novel N‐doped non‐noble HEA NPs are designed and successfully prepared by IGC. The N‐doping effects of HEA NPs on oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are systematically investigated. The results show that N‐doping is conducive to improving the OER, but unfavorable for HER activity. The FeCoNiCrN NPs achieve an overpotential of 269.7 mV for OER at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 in 1.0 M KOH solution, which is among the best reported values for non‐noble HEA catalysts. The effects of the differences in electronegativity, ionization energy and electron affinity energy among mixed elements in N‐doped HEAs are discussed as inducing electron transfer efficiency. Combined with X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the extended X‐ray absorption fine structure analysis, an element‐design strategy in N‐doped HEAs electrocatalysts is proposed to improve the intrinsic activity and ameliorate water splitting performance.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2023

How Atomic Bonding Plays the Hardness Behavior in the Al–Co–Cr–Cu–Fe–Ni High Entropy Family

A systematic study on a face-centered cubic-based compositionally complex alloy system Al–Co–Cr–Cu–Fe–Ni in its single-phase state is carried out, where a mother senary compound Al 8 Co 17 Cr 17 Cu 8 Fe 17 Ni 33 and five of its suballoys, obtained by removing one element at a time, are investigated and exhaustively analyzed determining the contribution of each alloying element in the solid solution. The senary and the quinaries are compared using experimental techniques including X-ray absorption spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and first principles hybrid Monte Carlo/molecular dynamics simulations. Chemical short-range order and bond length distances have been determined both at the experimental and computational level. Electronic structure and local atomic distortions up to 5.2 Å have been correlated to the microhardness values. A linear regression model connecting hardness with local lattice distortions is presented.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2021

Mechanical Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys: A Review

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) are materials that consist of equimolar or near-equimolar multiple principal components but tend to form single phases, which is a new research topic in the field of metallurgy, and have attracted extensive attention in the past decade. The HEAs families contain the face-centered-cubic (fcc), body-centered-cubic (bcc), and hexagonal-close-packed (hcp)-structured HEAs. On the one hand, mechanical properties, e.g., hardness, strength, ductility, fatigue, and elastic moduli, are essential for practical applications of HEAs. Scientists have explored in this direction since the advent of HEAs. On the other hand, the pursuit of high strength and good plasticity is the critical research issue of materials. Hence, strengthening of HEAs is a crucial issue.In this chapter, we reviewed the recent work on the room-temperature elastic properties and mechanical behavior of HEAs, including the mechanisms behind the plastic deformation of HEAs at both low and high temperatures. Furthermore, the present work examined the strengthening strategies of HEAs, e.g., strain hardening, grain-boundary strengthening, solid-solution strengthening, and particle strengthening. The fatigue, creep, and fracture properties were briefly introduced. Lastly, the future scientific issues and challenges of HEAs were discussed.

Shang, Yuanyuan↗
DOE OSTI2020

Simulation of mineral dissolution at the pore scale with evolving fluid-solid interfaces: review of approaches and benchmark problem set

This manuscript presents a benchmark problem for the simulation of single-phase flow, reactive transport, and solid geometry evolution at the pore scale. The problem is organized in three parts that focus on specific aspects: flow and reactive transport (part I), dissolution-driven geometry evolution in two dimensions (part II), and an experimental validation of three-dimensional dissolution-driven geometry evolution (part III). Five codes are used to obtain the solution to this benchmark problem, including Chombo-Crunch, OpenFOAM-DBS, a lattice Boltzman code, Vortex, and dissolFoam. These codes cover a good portion of the wide range of approaches typically employed for solving pore-scale problems in the literature, including discretization methods, characterization of the fluid-solid interfaces, and methods to move these interfaces as a result of fluid-solid reactions. A short review of these approaches is given in relation to selected published studies. Results from the simulations performed by the five codes show remarkable agreement both quantitatively--based on upscaled parameters such as surface area, solid volume, and effective reaction rate--and qualitatively--based on comparisons of shape evolution. This outcome is especially notable given the disparity of approaches used by the codes. Therefore, these results establish a strong benchmark for the validation and testing of pore-scale codes developed for the simulation of flow and reactive transport with evolving geometries. They also underscore the significant advances seen in the last decade in tools and approaches for simulating this type of problem.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Application of Differential Scanning Calorimetry to Investigate Precipitation Behavior in Nickel-Base Superalloys Under Continuous Cooling and Heating Conditions

In this study, a suite of experimental tools and fast-acting, numerical-simulation techniques was used to quantify the precipitation behavior of three nickel-base superalloys: IN-100, LSHR, and 718. Experimental methods comprised differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to establish the specific heat as a function of temperature and selected direct-resistance heating trials (using a Gleeble ® machine) to obtain samples for microstructural analysis. For the DSC experiments, each alloy was cooled at a prescribed constant rate (between 5 and 20 K/min) after an initial soak/equilibration in the high-temperature, single-phase (supersolvus) temperature regime. On-heating DSC trials beginning at ambient temperature were also performed on alloy 718 in three different starting conditions: super- δ -solvus solution treated and water quenched (denoted as ST), solution treated and aged (STA), and solution treated and overaged (STOA). DSC results, revealing the thermal signatures associated with the kinetics of precipitation of γ ' (IN-100, LSHR) or γ ' and γ " (718), were interpreted using a previously-developed fast-acting routine that treats concurrent nucleation, growth, coarsening, and dissolution. For these simulations, special attention was paid to various thermo-kinetic input parameters including equilibrium solvus-approach curves, bulk free energies of transformation, matrix-precipitate interface energies, and effective diffusivities. For the γ - γ ' superalloys (IN-100 and LSHR), estimates of precipitate volume fraction as a function of temperature from the specific-heat data revealed semi-quantitative agreement with simulation predictions. For the γ - γ '- γ " superalloy (718), simulation predictions of precipitate volume fractions were converted to specific heat as a function of temperature and showed semi-quantitative agreement with the direct measurements.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Ultrasound-driven fabrication of high-entropy alloy nanocatalysts promoted by alcoholic ionic liquids

High-entropy alloy nanoparticles (HEA-NPs) are highly underutilized in heterogeneous catalysis due to the absence of a reliable, sustainable, and facile synthetic method. Herein, we report a facile synthesis of HEA nanocatalysts realized via an ultrasound-driven wet chemistry method promoted by alcoholic ionic liquids (AILs). Owing to the intrinsic reducing ability of the hydroxyl group, AILs were synthesized and utilized as environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional reducing agents and volatile organic solvents in the synthetic process. Under high-intensity ultrasound irradiation, Au 3+ , Pd 2+ , Pt 2+ , Rh 3+ , and Ru 3+ ions were co-reduced and transformed into single-phase HEA (AuPdPtRhRu) nanocrystals without calcination. Characterization results reveal that the as-synthesized nanocrystals are composed of elements of Au, Pd, Pt, Rh, and Ru as expected. Compared to the monometallic counterparts such as Pd-NPs, the carbon-supported HEA nanocatalysts show superior catalytic performance for selective hydrogenation of phenol to cyclohexanone in terms of yield and selectivity. Our synthetic strategy provides an improved and facile methodology for the sustainable synthesis of multicomponent alloys for catalysis and other applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Order Parameter Engineering for Random Systems

The chemical short-range order (CSRO) in crystalline materials influences the properties, and its effect is significant in the context of multicomponent materials. Here, we propose a scheme for the CSRO parameter or Δ-parameter in terms of the number of like and unlike bonds in the multicomponent systems. The OPERA or Order Parameter Engineering for RAndom Systems scheme for semi-canonical and canonical ensembles is proposed. The proposed framework of Δ-parameter with OPERA framework can generate the single-phase supercell with desired CSRO without explicit energy calculations and provides a computationally efficient scheme for exploration of the CSRO. We demonstrate the applicability of the Δ-parameter as a scalar quantity for describing the CSRO in multicomponent alloys and oxides (FCC-CoCrNi, BCC-MoNbTaW, and (CoCuMgNiZn)O).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Role of Chemical Disorder in High Temperature Dislocation Glide in Refractory Multi-principal Element Alloys

Refractory multi-principal element alloys (RMPEAs) combine a chemically disordered lattice with a structurally ordered, single‐phase body‐centered cubic (bcc) crystal structure. Chemical fluctuations in these alloys give rise to significant energy barriers that impede dislocation motion. In this study, we use phase field dislocation dynamics to examine how spatial temperature fluctuations compete with randomness in energy barriers to affect the motion of long screw dislocations in three equi-atomic MoNbTa‐based RMPEAs: MoNbTa, MoNbTaW, and MoNbTaVW. Over a wide range of homologous temperatures (T h ≈ 0–0.6), we determined a screw dislocation ‘flow stress’ as the minimum applied stress to sustain continuous motion over a long excursion distance within a fixed timeframe. All three RMPEAs exhibit temperature dependent flow stress with three characteristic glide regimes: at low homologous temperatures, flow stress drops sharply, and screw glide remains planar and rectilinear; at intermediate homologous temperatures, the flow stress levels off as glide becomes planar but wavy; and at high homologous temperatures, flow stress plateaus as screws exhibit nonplanar, three‐dimensional motion. Glide kinetics and transition temperatures are controlled by the chemically induced fluctuations in the energy landscape. The rectilinear to wavy transition temperature is controlled by statistically weakest local barriers in the glide plane, whereas the wavy to 3D transition temperature is governed by statistically strongest local barriers. At low and intermediate homologous temperatures, the relative spread in energy barriers governs glide behavior by controlling the local kinetics of kink pair formation and kink pinning. At high homologous temperatures, the average barrier height governs the glide behavior by controlling the number of out-of-plane excursions during 3D glide. These findings reveal how random chemical fluctuations determine screw‐driven plasticity in RMPEAs, providing critical insight for the design of high temperature structural alloys.

Defects↗
DOE OSTI2021

Applications of Strain-Coupled Magnetoelectric Composites

This article deals with research, development and future directions of magnetoelectric composites for practical devices applications. In the past 20 years there has been a surge of research in the area of multiferroics (MF) and magnetoelectrics (ME) due to their potential to replace existing technologies based only on ferroelectric or ferromagnetic materials. Some of the magnetoelectric composites show exceptionally high potential in the area of magnetic field sensors, however, work remains before commercialization can be realized. The cross coupling among various ferroic parameters in magnetoelectric composites is several orders higher than single phase magetoelectrics, which make its favorable for low detection (nT or pT) magnetic field sensors. Advances in both layered structures or controlled three-dimensional matrix composites for applications as magnetoelectric nonvolatile memory elements are both required. Robust cross-coupling among various parameters with more than four logic states and its compatibility with complementary-symmetry metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology are the main requirements for heterostructure magnetoelectric thin films. The major hurdles in the area of magnetoelectric nonvolatile memory elements are poor interfacial properties and weak magnetoelectric coupling for high density fast read and write processes. Another potential area is strained coupled magneto-electric composites where magnetostriction mediated dimensional change in the magnetic layer effectively modulate the change in the dimension of piezoelectric layers via piezostriction, which leads to a strong ME coupling where their coupling magnitude is sufficient for magnetic field sensors. Energy harvesters based on magnetoelectric composites are also intriguing concepts to capture various types of waste energy, in the form mechanical vibration, pressure, wind energy, hydrothermal and waste temperature.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

In situ microstructural evolution in face-centered and body-centered cubic complex concentrated solid-solution alloys under heavy ion irradiation

This study characterizes the microstructural evolution of single-phase complex concentrated solid-solution alloy (CSA) compositions under heavy ion irradiation with the goal of evaluating mechanisms for CSA radiation tolerance in advanced fission systems. Three such alloys, Cr 18 Fe 27 Mn 27 Ni 28 , Cr 15 Fe 35 Mn 15 Ni 35 , and equimolar NbTaTiV, along with reference materials (pure Ni and E90 for the Cr-FeMnNi family and pure V for NbTaTiV) were irradiated at 50 K and 773 K with 1 MeV Kr ++ ions to various levels of displacements per atom (dpa) using in-situ transmission electron microscopy. Cryogenic irradiation resulted in small defect clusters and faulted dislocation loops as large as 12 nm in face-centered cubic (FCC) CSAs. With thermal diffusion suppressed at cryogenic temperatures, defect densities were lower in all CSAs than in their less compositionally complex reference materials indicating that point defect production is reduced during the displacement cascade stage. High temperature irradiation of the two FCC CSA resulted in the formation of interstitial dislocation loops which by 2 dpa grew to an average size of 27 nm in Cr 18 Fe 27 Mn 27 Ni 28 and 10 nm in Cr 15 Fe 35 Mn 15 Ni 35 . This difference in loop growth kinetics was attributed to the difference in Mn-content due to its effect on the nucleation rate by increasing vacancy mobility or reducing the stacking-fault energy.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Effects of cryogenic temperature and grain size on fatigue-crack propagation in the medium-entropy CrCoNi alloy

CrCoNi-based high-entropy alloys have demonstrated outstanding mechanical properties, particularly at cryogenic temperatures. Here we investigate the fatigue-crack propagation properties of the equiatomic, single-phase, face-centered cubic, medium-entropy alloy (MEA), CrCoNi, that displays exceptional strength, ductility and toughness, all of which are enhanced at cryogenic temperatures. Fatigue-crack growth is examined, at a load ratio of 0.1 over a wide range of growth rates, from ~10 –11 to >10 –7 m/cycle, at room (293 K) and cryogenic (198 K, 77 K) temperatures for two grain sizes (~7 and 68 µm), with emphasis on near-threshold behavior. We find that the ΔK th fatigue thresholds are increased with decreasing temperature and increasing grain size: from 5.7 MPa√m at 293 K to 8 MPa√m at 77 K in the fine-grained alloy, and from 9.4 MPa√m at 293 K to 13.7 MPa√m at 77 K in the coarse-grained alloy. Mechanistically, transgranular cracking at 293 K transitions to a mixture of intergranular and transgranular at cryogenic temperatures, where the increased propensity of nano-twins appears to inhibit growth rates by deflecting the crack path. However, the main factor affecting near-threshold behavior is roughness-induced crack closure from interference between the crack flanks, which is enhanced by the rougher fracture surfaces at low temperatures, particularly in the coarser-grained microstructure. Here, fatigue-crack propagation behavior in CrCoNi is comparable to nickel-based superalloys but is superior to that of the high-entropy CrMnFeCoNi (Cantor) alloy and many high-strength steels, making the CrCoNi alloy an excellent candidate material for safety-critical applications, particularly involving low temperatures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Extraordinary creep resistance in a non-equiatomic high-entropy alloy from the optimum solid-solution strengthening and stress-assisted precipitation process

Improving creep resistance has commonly been achieved by the optimization of alloy design that results into strong solid-solution strengthening and/or coherent precipitates for dislocation blockage. High-entropy alloys (HEAs), despite their single-phase solid-solution nature, only exhibit creep properties that are comparable to precipitate-strengthened ferritic alloys. Moreover, many HEAs are found to be plagued with many incoherent second phases after long-term annealing, which reduces the lifetime and thus prohibits their usage at elevated temperatures. The present work demonstrates the extraordinary creep resistance of a non-equiatomic Al 0.3 CoCrFeNi HEA, in which the creep strain rate is found to be several orders of magnitude lower than the Cantor alloy and its subsets. Using a suite of characterization tools such as atom probe tomography (APT) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), it was shown that a B2 precipitate phase that has been widely seen during annealing is suppressed during the early stage of the creep deformation. Currently, metastable and coherent L1 2 precipitates emerge and provide significant creep strengthening. This observation is rationalized by the coupling between the applied stress and the lattice mismatch. In the range of 973 ~ 1033 K, the stress exponent and activation energy were determined to be 3–6.53 and 390–548.2 kJ·mol –1 , respectively. The creep lifetime, on the other hand, is comparable to Cantor subset alloys because the precipitate free zone near the grain boundaries does not provide sufficient constraint for the grain boundary cavity growth. Furthermore, the present work provides a pathway to design novel HEAs with improved creep resistance.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Investigation of grain size and geometrically necessary dislocation density dependence of flow stress in Mg-4Al by using nanoindentation

Models for grain size dependence of flow stress typically ignore contributions from geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) in the grain boundary regions. Ashby had proposed the following equation for flow stress (τ) as a function of grain size (d) and effective plastic strain ($\bar{ε}$): $τ = τ_{0} + C'G\sqrt{^{b\bar{ε}}_{d}}$ using an unknown empirical coefficient, C’, In this study, the coefficient, C’, and equation for the grain size dependence of flow stress were investigated in Mg-4Al using nanoindentation. C’ ranges from 1.4 to 7.11 that is related to the hardness difference (∆H0) between the adjacent grains as $C' + 0.62\sqrt{ΔH_{0}}$. Ashby equation was used to predict uniaxial stress-strain curves in grain sizes of 55 µm, 187 µm, and 333 µm. The results showed lower flow stress and lower hardening rate compared to experimentally measured tensile stress-strain response. The discrepancy seems to be a result of hardening effect of SSDs. Here, we propose a modified Ashby equation that takes into account the hardening effect of SSDs and GNDs separately, resulting in a better agreement between calculated and experimentally measured values. This analysis demonstrates estimation of uniaxial stress-strain response using nanoindentation measurements that captures effects of grain size, and strain hardening from SSDs and GNDs. The combination of the revised equation and nanoindentation method will enable rapid exploration of stress-strain response of a diverse range of single-phase polycrystalline alloys.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Destabilizing high-capacity high entropy hydrides via earth abundant substitutions: From predictions to experimental validation

The vast chemical space of high entropy alloys (HEAs) makes trial-and-error experimental approaches for materials discovery intractable and often necessitates data-driven and/or first principles computational insights to successfully target materials with desired properties. In the context of materials discovery for hydrogen storage applications, a theoretical prediction-experimental validation approach can vastly accelerate the search for substitution strategies to destabilize high-capacity hydrides based on benchmark HEAs, e.g. TiVNbCr alloys. Here, in this study, machine learning predictions, corroborated by density functional theory calculations, predict substantial hydride destabilization with increasing substitution of earth-abundant Fe content in the (TiVNb) 75 Cr 25-x Fe x system. The as-prepared alloys crystallize in a single-phase bcc lattice for limited Fe content x < 7, while larger Fe content favors the formation of a secondary C14 Laves phase intermetallic. Short range order for alloys with x < 7 can be well described by a random distribution of atoms within the bcc lattice without lattice distortion. Hydrogen absorption experiments performed on selected alloys validate the predicted thermodynamic destabilization of the corresponding fcc hydrides and demonstrate promising lifecycle performance through reversible absorption/desorption. This demonstrates the potential of computationally expedited hydride discovery and points to further opportunities for optimizing bcc alloy ↔ fcc hydrides for practical hydrogen storage applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Local chemical ordering of a neutron-irradiated CrFeMnNi compositionally complex alloy

While ion-irradiation studies are a critical first step in studying compositionally complex alloys (CCAs) for nuclear applications, they do not capture all the microstructural changes occurring under the low irradiation dose rates and different particles’ scattering patterns experienced in a nuclear reactor setting. To explore these phenomena in reactor-relevant conditions for the first time in CCA, the single-phase solid-solution Cr 10 Fe 30 Mn 30 Ni 30 was neutron irradiated up to 6.61 displacements per atom at 395 and 579 °C. Irradiation-enhanced local chemical ordering (LCO) well beyond the range of short range ordering was observed, and is predicted to be the precursor to the precipitation of a coherent Ni-Mn L1 0 phase and a Cr-rich α’ phase, though TEM analysis did not indicate the presence of either in any irradiation condition. The line density of faulted dislocation loops decreased from 6.47 to 1.69 ∙ 10 15 m -2 from 3.43 to 6.61 dpa at 579 °C despite no appreciable faulted loop content in the unirradiated material. LCO is expected to increase the complexity of the energy landscape within this alloy, restricting interstitial point defect mobility and creating local regions of greater stacking fault energy. These contribute to the negative correlation between irradiation dose and faulted dislocation loop density in this study, as well as the lack of void swelling observed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗