Influence of radiation-induced voids and bubbles on physical properties of austenitic structural alloys

Void swelling in austenitic stainless steels induces significant changes in their electrical resistivity and elastic moduli, as demonstrated in this study using a Russian stainless steel irradiated as fuel pin cladding in BN-600. Precipitation induced by irradiation also causes second-order changes in these properties, but can dominate the measurement for small swelling levels. When cavities are full of helium as expected under some fusion irradiation conditions, additional second-order changes are expected but they will be small enough to exclude from the analysis.