The strong influence of displacement rate on void swelling in variants of Fe–16Cr–15Ni–3Mo austenitic stainless steel irradiated in BN-350 and BOR-60

Recent irradiation experiments conducted on a variety of austenitic stainless steels have shown that void swelling appears to be increased when the dpa rate is decreased, primarily by a shortening of the transient regime of swelling. This paper presents results derived from nominally similar irradiations conducted on six Russian steels, all laboratory heat variants of Fe–16Cr–15Ni–3Mo–Nb–B, with each irradiated in two fast reactors, BOR-60 and BN-350. The BN-350 irradiation proceeded at a dpa rate three times higher than that conducted in BOR-60. In all six steels, a significantly higher swelling level was attained in BOR-60, agreeing with the results of earlier studies.