Effects of transition metal carbide dispersoids on helium bubble formation in dispersion-strengthened tungsten

Ashrakat Saefan; Xingyu Liu; Eric Lang; Levko Higgins; Yongqiang Wang; Osman El-Atwani; Jean Paul Allain; Xing Wang

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-40421-0

Effects of transition metal carbide dispersoids on helium bubble formation in dispersion-strengthened tungsten

Sci Rep. 2023 Aug 16;13(1):13352. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-40421-0.

Authors

Ashrakat Saefan¹, Xingyu Liu², Eric Lang^{3

4}, Levko Higgins¹, Yongqiang Wang⁵, Osman El-Atwani^{5

6}, Jean Paul Allain¹, Xing Wang⁷

Affiliations

¹ Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
³ Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA.
⁴ Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87106, USA.
⁵ Materials Science and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
⁶ Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, 99354, USA.
⁷ Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. xvw5285@psu.edu.

Abstract

The formation of helium bubbles and subsequent property degradation poses a significant challenge to tungsten as a plasma-facing material in future long-pulse plasma-burning fusion reactors. In this study, we investigated helium bubble formation in dispersion-strengthened tungsten doped with transition metal carbides, including TaC, ZrC, and TiC. Of the three dispersoids, TaC exhibited the highest resistance to helium bubble formation, possibly due to the low vacancy mobility in the Group VB metal carbide and oxide phases. Under identical irradiation conditions, large helium bubbles formed at grain boundaries in tungsten, while no bubbles were observed at the interfaces between the carbide dispersoid and tungsten matrix. Moreover, our results showed the interfaces could suppress helium bubble formation in the nearby tungsten matrix, suggesting that the interfaces are more effective in trapping helium as tiny clusters. Our research provided new insights into optimizing the microstructure of dispersion-strengthened tungsten alloys to enhance their performance.

Abstract

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