Irradiation damage of shielding materials for fusion energy

先进的辐射屏蔽材料的开发是使紧凑型聚变反应堆能够在商业基础上安全运行的关键。碳化钨陶瓷因其优异的热性能、机械性能和屏蔽性能而成为候选材料中的佼佼者。然而，对于在运行中将经历的聚变中子轰击下这些性质如何退化，人们知之甚少。该项目试图通过将英国离子束设施的离子辐照与帝国理工学院最先进的表征技术相结合来获得这样一个定量的理解。机械性能将使用先进结构陶瓷中心正在开发的微机械测试方法进行评估。性能的变化将反过来通过详细的微观结构表征来解释，包括透射式电子显微镜，以了解辐射诱导缺陷的形态和特征；以及掠入射X射线衍射，以量化辐射诱导的相变以及上述现象如何导致膨胀。

The development of advanced radiation shielding materials is critical to enabling safe operation of compact fusion reactors on a commercial basis. Tungsten carbide ceramics are front-running candidate materials due to their excellent thermal, mechanical, and shielding properties. However, relatively little is known about how these properties degrade under bombardment by fusion neutrons that will be experienced in operation.This project seeks to gain such a quantitative understanding by combining ion-irradiations at UK ion-beam facilities with state-of-the-art characterisation techniques at Imperial. The mechanical properties will be evaluated using micro-mechanical testing methods being developed at the Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics. Property changes will in turn be interpreted through a detailed microstructural characterisation, including transmission electron microscopy to understand the morphology and character of radiation induced defects; and grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction to quantify irradiation-induced phase changes and how the above phenomena contribute to swelling.