Development of GD-containing austenitic stainless steel

Based on first-principles calculations on the stability of various M-Gd (with M = Fe or Ni) intermetallics, we designed two Gd-containing austenitic stainless-steels as a neutron-absorbing structural material. The Gd-rich precipitates contained in each alloy were identified via scanning electron microscopy and trans-mission electron microscopy. (Ni,Fe,Cr)7Gd2 precipitates were observed in the 18Cr-20Ni-1.5Gd wt.% alloy. The melting temperature of the precipitates was similar to 1149 degrees C, which is higher than the reheating tempera-ture commonly used for austenitic stainless-steels, which can be utilised to develop Gd-containing stain-less steel with good combination of neutron absorption capacity, hot workability, and ductility. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )