Cluster Dynamics Simulation of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels under Irradiation

Abstract

The coupling between copper rich precipitates (CRP) and point defects in neutron irradiated iron alloys and VVER steels was investigated by means of cluster dynamics (CD) simulations. The consideration of the strain energy effect on CRP kinetics as well as the application of the regular solution model for the case of different fixed copper contents of CRP provides a good agreement between the simulation results and experimental data for complex iron based alloys with small (0.015 wt%) and high (0.42 wt%) copper content. It was found that the CD simulation is applicable to irradiated VVER steel with 0.07 wt% of copper.