Cascade damage effects on the swelling of irradiated materials

Abstract The homogeneous rate theory of void growth is extended to include the possibility of forming vacancy loops when the irradiation produces cascade damage. The analysis provides a basis for understanding and correlating the relative swelling generated during electron; heavy ion and fast neutron irradiation. In order to illustrate the physical features of the model it is applied in some detail to calculating the volume swelling in solution treated M316 stainless steel for which there is a considerable amount of experimental data. The results from these calculations serve to expose the sensitivity of void swelling to the scale on which interstitial loops are nucleated. They also highlight the particular difficulty arising from the continuous generation of transmutation gas in predicting swelling under neutron irradiation at elevated temperatures.