SANS experiments to investigate precipitate evolution and optimum tempering temperature of RAFM nuclear reactor steel and weld

This work aims to understand the formation of solute clusters and precipitate evolution in nuclear reactor steel as a function of temperature. We propose to investigate the evolution of precipitates using small angle neutron scattering (SANS) using a set of in-situ thermal ageing and a series of thermally aged samples. The information obtained from SANS, will be used to understand the precipitate evolution mechanism in RAFM reactor steels and to study the correlation existing between the tempering temperature and material strength.