Investigation of microstructural evolution under neutron irradiation in Eurofer97 steel by means of small-angle neutron scattering

Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) has been utilized to investigate in Eurofer97 steel (9Cr, 0.01C, 1W, 0.2V Fe bal wt%) the microstructural effect of neutron irradiation at 300 °C up to a dose level of 8.4 dpa. For each irradiated sample an unirradiated reference was measured to distinguish as accurately as possible the actual effect of the neutron irradiation. The SANS measurements were carried out at the D22 diffractometer at the High-Flux Reactor of the Institut Max von Laue–Paul Langevin, Grenoble, France. Analysing separately the nuclear and magnetic SANS components obtained after subtraction of the reference from the irradiated sample it appears that the microstructural inhomogeneities produced under such irradiation conditions are non-magnetic ones, such as microvoids. Their size distributions are presented and compared with those previously obtained for the same steel irradiated at 2.5 dpa: with increasing the dose, the volume fraction is increased by a factor of 2 roughly, while the average size of these inhomogeneities remains nearly unchanged.