@article{54a10e75e5c647988e1419c224abc631,
title = "Dislocation density transients and saturation in irradiated zirconium",
abstract = "Zirconium alloys are widely used as the fuel cladding material in pressurized water reactors, accumulating a significant population of defects and dislocations from exposure to neutrons. We present and interpret synchrotron microbeam X-ray diffraction measurements of proton-irradiated Zircaloy-4, where we identify a transient peak and the subsequent saturation of dislocation density as a function of exposure. This is explained by direct atomistic simulations showing that the observed variation of dislocation density as a function of dose is a natural result of the evolution of the dense defect and dislocation microstructure driven by the concurrent generation of defects and their subsequent stress-driven relaxation. In the dynamic equilibrium state of the material developing in the high dose limit, the defect content distribution of the population of dislocation loops, coexisting with the dislocation network, follows a power law with exponent α≈2.2. This corresponds to the power law exponent of β≈3.4 for the distribution of loops as a function of their diameter that compares favourably with the experimentally measured values of β in the range 3≤β≤4.",
keywords = "Defects, Dislocations, Irradiation, Zirconium",
author = "Warwick, {Andrew R.} and Rhys Thomas and M. Boleininger and Ko{\c c} and G. Zilahi and G. Rib{\'a}rik and Z. Hegedues and U. Lienert and T. Ungar and C. Race and M. Preuss and P. Frankel and Dudarev, {S. L.}",
note = "Funding Information: This work received funding from the RCUK Energy Programme Grant No. EP/W006839/1 and MIDAS EPSRC Grant No. EP/S01702X/1 , and was partially carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium, funded by the European Union via the Euratom Research and Training Programme (Grant Agreement No 101052200 — EUROfusion). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them. We acknowledge DESY (Hamburg, Germany) , a member of the Helmholtz Association HGF, for the provision of experimental facilities. We gratefully acknowledge the use of the high-performance computing facility MARCONI (Bologna, Italy) provided by EUROfusion, and computing resources supplied by the IRIS (STFC) Consortium . This work also received support from the EPSRC Access to HPC Programme on the ARCHER2 UK National Supercomputing Service ( http://www.archer2.ac.uk ). Funding Information: This work received funding from the RCUK Energy Programme Grant No. EP/W006839/1 and MIDAS EPSRC Grant No. EP/S01702X/1, and was partially carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium, funded by the European Union via the Euratom Research and Training Programme (Grant Agreement No 101052200 — EUROfusion). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them. We acknowledge DESY (Hamburg, Germany), a member of the Helmholtz Association HGF, for the provision of experimental facilities. We gratefully acknowledge the use of the high-performance computing facility MARCONI (Bologna, Italy) provided by EUROfusion, and computing resources supplied by the IRIS (STFC) Consortium. This work also received support from the EPSRC Access to HPC Programme on the ARCHER2 UK National Supercomputing Service (http://www.archer2.ac.uk). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors",
year = "2023",
month = may,
doi = "10.1016/j.ijplas.2023.103590",
language = "English",
volume = "164",
journal = "International Journal of Plasticity",
issn = "0749-6419",
publisher = "Elsevier",
}