Effect of Specimen Size and Nickel Content on the Impact Properties of 12 Cr-1 MoVW Ferritic Steel

摘要

The ferritic steel 12 Cr-1 MoVW is a candidate material for use in the first wall of magnetic fusion reactors. One of the primary concerns of materials in this application is service-induced embrittlement from aging and irradiation. Unirradiated Charpy impact data have been developed on three typical heats of 12 Cr-1 MoVW steel and on heats that have been modified with nickel and chromium additions for subsequent simulation of helium effects of irradiation. The ductile-to-brittle transition temperature and the upper-shelf energy were reduced by nickel additions. The addition of nickel while simultaneously maintaining a constant net chromium equivalent caused the transition temperature to increase. The use of a subsize specimen is mandated by the small volume and high gamma heating in high-flux research reactors used for very high-fluence irradiation experiments. Therefore, an understanding of the behavior of the subsize specimen is important in predicting corresponding irradiation-induced transition temperature shifts and upper-shelf drops of full-size Charpy specimens. Data are reported from subsize Charpy impact specimens, and the full- and subsize specimens are compared. The effect of specimen size on the upper-shelf energy of this material can be reduced better by volume normalization than by area normalization. (ERA citation 09:006142)