The Question of Saturation of Void Swelling in Fe-Cr-Ni Austenitic Alloys

Whereas in earlier publications it appeared that a possible saturation of neutron-induced void swelling might be developing at temperatures of 400 and 427°C in annealed Fe-Cr-Ni model alloys in a manner that was dependent on composition, data obtained at higher neutron exposures in EBR-II have led to the conclusion that such an expectation was erroneous. At all temperatures in the range 400–650°C, the neutron induced swelling eventually reaches ∼1%/dpa and continues to very high swelling levels thereafter without any hint of saturation.