Osman El Atwani (left) and Enrique Martinez Saez (right) from Los Alamos National Laboratory investigate the new alloy with a transmission electron microscope. Photo: Los Alamos National Laboratory.A new tungsten-based alloy developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory can withstand unprecedented amounts of radiation without damage. The new alloy appears to overcome a common problem with previous materials developed for use in extreme irradiation environments such as the interiors of magnetic fusion reactors, which is that they are prone to fracturing.
"This material showed outstanding radiation resistance when compared to pure nanocrystalline tungsten materials and other conventional alloys," said Osman El Atwani, principal investigator of the ‘Radiation Effects and Plasma Material Interactions in Tungsten Based Materials’ project at Los Alamos and lead author of a paper on this work in Science Advances. "Our investigations of the material mechanical properties under different stress states and response of the material under plasma exposure are ongoing."
"It seems that we have developed a material with unprecedented radiation resistance," said principal investigator Enrique Martinez Saez, a co-author of the paper at Los Alamos. "We have never seen before a material that can withstand the level of radiation damage that we have observed for this high-entropy [four or more principal elements] alloy. It seems to retain outstanding mechanical properties after irradiation, as opposed to traditional counterparts, in which the mechanical properties degrade easily under irradiation."
"Atom probe tomography revealed an interesting atomic-level layering of different elements in these alloys, which then changed to nanoclusters when subjected to radiation, helping us to better understand why this unique alloy is highly radiation tolerant," explained Arun Devaraj, a materials scientist and project collaborator at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The material, created as a thin film, is a quaternary nanocrystalline tungsten-tantalum-vanadium-chromium alloy that has been characterized under extreme thermal conditions and after irradiation.
"We haven't yet tested it in high-corrosion environments," added Martinez Saez, "but I anticipate it should perform well there also. And if it is ductile, as expected, it could also be used as turbine material since it is a refractory, high-melting-point material."
The project was a multi-institutional effort, involving researchers and facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Warsaw University of Technology in Poland and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.
This story is adapted from material from Los Alamos National Laboratory, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier. Link to original source.