A combined thermomechanical and radiation testing platform for a 6 MV tandem accelerator

Cladding and structural materials for nuclear reactors must withstand elevated temperatures, energetic particle fluxes, and sustained mechanical loading, while maintaining mechanical strength and integrity. To address this experimental need for new materials, an accelerator end-station has been developed that mates a micro tensile test frame with a 6 MV Van de Graaff Tandem accelerator. This allows ion species with energies up to 100 MeV to strike a specimen during simultaneous heating up to 1200 celcius, uniaxial loading up to 450 kg, or cyclic loading at rates of up to 50 Hz. The ability to perform temperature-controlled tensile, creep, and high-cycle fatigue experiments during ion implantation or irradiation will provide a deeper understanding of the deformation response of materials under various combinations of extreme environments. The capabilities of this facility are demonstrated by inducing irradiation-enhanced creep in coarse-grained copper and suppressing failure during fatigue loading by simultaneous irradiation in nanocrystalline Ni-Fe.