SWELLING MODIFICATION BY ONE-DIMENSIONAL DIFFUSION OF CASCADE-PRODUCED SMALL INTERSTITIAL CLUSTERS

The paper deals with the influence of one-dimensional diffusion of sma ll interstitial clusters produced in collision cascades on the swellin g of irradiated structural materials. It is demonstrated that the resu lting swelling modification is very sensitive to microstructural param eters of irradiated materials. Qualitative trends of swelling modifica tion in well annealed materials correlate with experimental observatio ns; however for cold-worked materials the model predicts noticeable de crease in swelling rate by one-dimensionally diffusing clusters, which is in contrast with the observed material behaviour. (C) 1998 Elsevie r Science B.V. All rights reserved.