Modelling of Dislocation Bias in FCC Materials

Sammanfattning: Irradiation induced void swelling is problematic for the application of austenitic steels under high dose irradiation. In this thesis, the swelling is characterized by dislocation bias. The dislocation bias is obtained using the finite element method, accounting for fcc copper and nickel under electron irradiation. The methodology is implemented with the interaction energies between an edge dislocation and point defects. Analytically derived interaction energies, which are based on elasticity theory, are compared with interaction energies obtained from atomistic model using semi-empirical atomic potentials as physics basis. The comparison shows that the description of analytical interaction energies is inaccurate in the dislocation core regions. The bias factor dependence on dislocation density and temperature is presented and discussed. At high temperatures or low dislocation densities, the two approaches tend to converge. However, the dislocation bias based on the interaction energies from the two approaches, reveals larger discrepancy for nickel than for copper. The impact on dislocation bias from the different stacking fault energies of copper and nickel is elaborated. Nickel, which has a larger stacking fault energy, is predicted to have larger swelling rate than copper under the same irradiation conditions.