Creep behavior of reduced activation martensitic steel F82H injected with a large amount of helium

Creep response against DEMO reactor level helium was examined on F82H steel, a candidate structural material for advanced fusion systems. Helium was injected into the material at 823 K to a concentration of about 1000 appm utilizing alpha-particle irradiation with a cyclotron. Post-injection creep rupture tests were conducted at the same temperature. It has been demonstrated that helium brought about no significant effect on a variety of creep properties (lifetime, rupture elongation and minimum creep rate). In parallel with this.. it did not cause any influence on fracture appearance. Both helium implanted and unimplanted samples were failed in a completely transcrystalline and ductile fashion. No symptom of helium induced grain boundary separation was thereby observed even after high concentration helium introduction. These facts hint a fairly good resistance of this material toward high temperature helium embrittlement even for long-time service in fusion reactors. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.