Ion-irradiation-induced microstructural modifications in ferritic/martensitic steel T91

In this paper, in situ transmission electron microscopy investigations were carried out to study the microstructural evolution of ferritic/martensitic steel T91 under 1 MeV Krypton ion irradiation up to 4.2 × 10¹⁵ ions/cm² at 573 K, 673 K, and 773 K. At 573 K, grown-in defects are strongly modified by black-dot loops, and dislocation networks together with black-dot loops were observed after irradiation. At 673 K and 773 K, grown-in defects are only partially modified by dislocation loops; isolated loops and dislocation segments were commonly found after irradiation. Post irradiation examination indicates that at 4.2 × 10¹⁵ ions/cm², about 51% of the loops were a₀/2〈111〉 type for the 673 K irradiation, and the dominant loop type was a₀〈100〉 for the 773 K irradiation. Finally, a dispersed barrier hardening model was employed to estimate the change in yield strength, and the calculated ion data were found to follow the similar trend as the existing neutron data with an offset of 100–150 MPa.