Proton irradiation of Zr–1 wt.% Nb cladding material: A depth-wise assessment of inhomogeneous microstructural damage using X-ray diffraction line profile analyses

• Microstructural evaluation upon proton irradiation of Zr–1Nb fuel cladding alloy.
• Line profile analyses of wide angle and Synchroton grazing incidence XRD data.
• Decrease in coherent domain size along with increase in microstrain on irradiation.

The present work summarizes the effect of irradiation on the microstructure of Zr–1 wt.% Nb fuel cladding alloy using 5 MeV proton beam from a Variable Energy Cyclotron. The correlation between the damage energy deposition profile and the consequent microstructural modification has been obtained for different irradiation doses employing detailed line profile analysis of wide angle and Synchroton grazing incidence X-ray diffraction data. The inhomogeneous microstructure resulting from ion irradiation as a function of depth could be analyzed by these techniques. The size of the coherent domains was found to decrease drastically upon irradiation together with an increase in the microstrain values within these domains. A progressive decrease in the domain size, with a corresponding increase in the microstrain, was noticed upon increasing the dose of irradiation and along the depth of the irradiated samples.