The influence of temperature on the elastic properties of body-centered cubic reduced activation steels

Abstract

A first-principles based modeling approach to the effect of temperature on the isothermal single-crystal and polycrystalline elastic parameters of Fe-rich solid solutions is reported. The approach integrates alloy theory for chemical and magnetic disorders with accessible experimental data for the equilibrium volume and ferromagnetic phase transition, and is adopted to predict the temperature-dependent elastic parameters of the body-centered cubic phase of three reduced activation steels, CLAM/CLF-1, F82H, EUROFER97, considered as high-temperature material in power reactors. The predictions are assessed based on available experimental data for a reduced activation steel and both experimental and theoretical data for pure Fe. Alloying effects on the elastic constants relative to pure Fe are found to differ in the magnetically ordered and disordered phases. Contributions due to loss of long-range magnetic order, volume expansion, and entropy are important in determining the temperature dependence of the elastic parameters in all investigated materials. A previously reported, peculiar magneto-volume phenomenon on the equation of state in pure Fe is gradually removed by alloying and magnetic disordering, which requires particular attention when describing the thermo-chemical effects derived from the equation of state in Fe-rich solid solutions.

Keywords

• First-principles calculations
• Temperature effect
• Mechanical properties
• Reduced activation steels