Irradiation effects on toughness behaviour and microstructure of VVER-type Pressure Vessel Steels

The irradiation sensibility and the annealing behaviour were studied on seven different heats from VVER 440 and VVER 1000-type reactor pressure vessel steels. The specimens were irradiated at the Rheinsberg prototype VVER 2 reactor to mean neutron fluences between 43 - 127.6A1018 n/cm² [E > 0.5 MeV] and afterwards toughness and strength properties were determined. In addition the microstructure was analysed using SANS technique. There is an obvious trend regarding the correlations between the irradiation-induced changes of transition temperature, hardness and volume fraction of microstructural features of the radius near of approx. 0 to 2 nm. The main parameters of influence are the neutron fluence and the nickel content. The nickel-containing VVER 1000-type pressure vessel steel is more sensible against irradiation than the VVER 440-type steel which has a low content of nickel. For the last one the sensibility against radiation embrittlement depends on content of copper and phosphorus. Annealing at 475 °C (100 h) reduces the irradiation effect but not completely in every case.