Molecular dynamics simulations of the coupled effects of strain and temperature on displacement cascades in -zirconium

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and technology pp. 907 - 914
• Main Authors: Qurat-ul-ain Sahi, 김용수
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국원자력학회 01.08.2018
• Subjects: 원자력공학
• ISSN: 1738-5733; 2234-358X

In this article, we conducted molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the effect of applied strainand temperature on irradiation-induced damage in alpha-zirconium. Cascade simulations were performedwith primary knock-on atom energies ranging between 1 and 20 KeV, hydrostatic and uniaxialstrain values ranging from 2% (compression) to 2% (tensile), and temperatures ranging from 100 to1000 K. Results demonstrated that the number of defects increased when the displacement cascadeproceeded under tensile uniaxial hydrostatic strain. In contrast, compressive strain states tended todecrease the defect production rate as compared with the reference no-strain condition. The proportionsof vacancy and interstitial clustering increased by approximately 45% and 55% and 25% and 32% for 2%hydrostatic and uniaxial strain systems, respectively, as compared with the unstrained system, whereasboth strain fields resulted in a 15e30% decrease in vacancy and interstitial clustering under compressiveconditions. Tensile strains, specifically hydrostatic strain, tended to produce larger sized vacancy andinterstitial clusters, whereas compressive strain systems did not significantly affect the size of defectclusters as compared with the reference no-strain condition. The influence of the strain system on radiationdamage became more significant at lower temperatures because of less annealing than in highertemperature systems. KCI Citation Count: 2