Mechanical Properties of Ni Doped Cu Alloys Under Irradiation Environment

Abstract

Irradiation causes changes in the microstructure of the material due to the appearance of defects, which in turn affects the degradation of the macroscopic properties of the material. Therefore, it is necessary to study the evolution law of defects during irradiation damage, which is important for understanding the irradiation effect and property of material. In the manuscript, we used molecular dynamics method to investigate the effects of Cu-Ni alloys on the displacement cascade process at different temperatures, PKA energies and orientations, as well as the mechanical properties of the alloys before and after irradiation. The results show that under the same PKA energy and orientation, the number of Frenkel defect pairs in Cu-Ni alloy decreases slightly with the increase of temperature. At 300 K, the number of Frenkel defect pairs increases with the increase of PKA energy. At the same temperature and PKA energy, PKA orientation mainly affects the distribution of defects. By studying the mechanical properties of Cu-Ni alloys before and after irradiation, it is found that the tensile strength of Cu-Ni alloys increases significantly with the increase of Ni content. At 300 K, with the increase of PKA energy, the alloy showed the characteristics of hard and brittle irradiation. By analyzing the displacement cascade process and tensile deformation behavior of Cu-Ni alloys, it is possible to gain insight into the effects of different irradiation environments on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the alloys.

Keywords: Irradiation damage, Cu-Ni alloys, Molecular Dynamics, Frenkel defect pairs, Yield strength