COMPLAS 2023

Atomistically-informed Hardening and Kinetics Models of Helium Bubble in Irradiated Tungsten

  • Ji, Changqiu (Tsinghua University)
  • Hu, Jianqiao (Chinese Academy of Sciences)
  • Zhuang, Zhuo (Tsinghua University)
  • Cui, Yinan (Tsinghua University)

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Helium bubble acts as a crucial inducement to the performance degradation of plasma facing tungsten, leading to irradiation hardening and embrittlement. However, the fundamental question regarding the mechanism and quantitative model for dislocation-helium bubble interaction remains largely unexplored, as it is a complex physical process influenced by the external temperature, and the internal features of dislocations and helium bubbles, such as dislocation type, helium bubble size and the He/V ratio etc. Based on systematic molecular dynamics studies, the interaction mechanism between dislocations and helium bubbles in tungsten is revealed and relevant mechanism phase diagrams are established. It is found that the over-pressured helium bubble dominates interaction when the He/V ratio of bubble is high, and in the stable range of He/V ratio, increasing helium bubble size will lead to the transition from shear to Orowan-like or cross slip mechanism for the interaction between helium bubble and edge or screw dislocation, respectively. A mechanism-based reaction kinetics model for helium bubble is proposed, and a unified helium bubble hardening model applicable to edge, screw and mixed dislocations is established, which considers the climb behavior of edge dislocation, the temperature dependent mobility of screw dislocation, as well as the effects of helium-to-vacancy ratio and size of helium bubble. The established models can be directly applied to multiscale simulations, such as DDD and CP, providing a bridge between atomic-scale insights and micro-scale behaviors. Additionally, the proposed hardening model well predicts the hardening stress in the available macroscopic experiments at different temperatures. Above work lays a foundation for research of irradiation hardening and plastic deformation localization behavior of materials containing helium bubbles, and can be used to study the complex physical process of helium bubble generation, growth, evolution, its interaction with other microstructures and the final failure of materials under irradiation and mechanical loading.