Contribution to the Determination of Microstructural Parameters from Small Angle Scattering Experiments at Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels

Usually, the microstructure cannot be absolutely surely reconstructed from the small angle scattering pattern produced by it. The small angle neutron scattering curves measured at four C-poor ternary iron alloys were used to demonstrate the effect of the analysis method and the applied assumption on the microstructure analysis. Apart from the mean size of the scatterer, the size distribution as well as the shape of the scatterer affect the results. As a consequence, even well-proved methods as the indirect transformation method developed by Glatter can fail. The application of additional evaluation procedures or the use of information obtained by non-small angle scattering methods increases the chance to derive plausible structure models. In the paper a fit two-parameter method, the ratio between nuclear and magnetic scattering cross section and results from atom probe field ion microscopy are used for that. In this way it is shown that one of the four alloys exhibits another type of irradiation defects. Furthermore, modelling of the mechanical behaviours can also be helpful.