Investigation of the thermo-mechanical behavior of neutron-irradiated Fe-Cr alloys by self-consistent plasticity theory

The thermo-mechanical behavior of non-irradiated (at 223 K, 302 K and 573 K) and neutron irradiated (at 573 K) Fe-2.5Cr, Fe-5Cr and Fe-9Cr alloys is studied by a self-consistent plasticity theory, which consists of constitutive equations describing the contribution of radiation defects at grain level, and the elastic-viscoplastic self-consistent method to obtain polycrystalline behaviors. Attention is paid to two types of radiation-induced defects: interstitial dislocation loops and solute rich clusters, which are believed to be the main sources of hardening in Fe-Cr alloys at medium irradiation doses. Both the hardening mechanism and microstructural evolution are investigated by using available experimental data on microstructures, and implementing hardening rules derived from atomistic data. Good agreement with experimental data is achieved for both the yield stress and strain hardening of non-irradiated and irradiated Fe-Cr alloys by treating dislocation loops as strong thermally activated obstacles and solute rich clusters as weak shearable ones. [Display omitted] •A self-consistent plasticity theory is proposed for irradiated Fe-Cr alloys.•Both the irradiation-induced hardening and plastic flow evolution are studied.•Dislocation loops and solute rich clusters are considered as the main defects.•Numerical results of the proposed model match with corresponding experimental data.