The Use of Accelerators to Study Irradiation Effects in Materials

There is currently high interest in the use of accelerators to study irradiation effects in materials to be used in reactors. The effects produced by heavy ion irradiation (e.g., nickel ions irradiating stainless steel) and fast neutron irradiation are qualitatively similar. Time to achieve the damage state characteristic of end-of-life service is hours as compared to several years in available reactors. Some of the successes in this area are described herein as well as some of the many problems to be solved in order to establish quantitative relationships.