Studying the metal structure of anticorrosive cladding for the nuclear-reactor vessels by neutron diffraction and small-angle neutron scattering

Abstract

The results of neutron studies of the metal nanostructure of anticorrosive cladding for vessels of WWER -1000 nuclear reactors under different conditions of additional tempering are presented. In the anticorrosive-cladding material, small structural components (inhomogeneities) with a correlation radius of 2–3 nm are observed which form fractal structures with a scale of more than 100 nm. It is shown that at different annealing temperature, these small objects create new structures at crystal boundaries in the form of defect surfaces with the fractal dimension D_s = 2.4–2.6. In samples of anticorrosive cladding, nonmagnetic austenitic γ-phase iron (γ-Fe) and magnetic δ-ferrite (α-Fe) are observed. The alloy is found to be magnetically hard.