Precipitate behavior in self-ion irradiated stainless steels at high doses

To study radiation-induced precipitation at high doses, solution annealed 304L SS and cold worked 316 SS were irradiated to 46 and 260 dpa at 380 °C using 5 MeV Fe++ and the radiation-induced precipitates were examined using atom probe tomography. Ni/Si-rich clusters were observed in all examined conditions. G-phase precipitates were observed in 316 SS at 46 dpa but only appeared in 304L SS at 260 dpa. Using the neutron irradiation to 46 dpa at 320 °C as a reference, the temperature shift for cold worked 316 SS appeared to be smaller than that of solution annealed 304L SS, probably due to the high density of dislocations, which served as defect sinks and mitigated the effect of high dose rate.