Thermal Effects in Multicomponent Equiatomic Ni-Based Alloys under High-Energy Irradiation with Kr Ions

Today, the concept of single-phase concentrated solid solutions offers an alternative strategy for increasing the radiation resistance of materials, namely, a multi-element composition with equiatomic or nearly equiatomic concentrations. It is highly desirable to understand the relationship between the chemical complexity of alloys and the thermal effects associated with irradiation in order to increase the radiation resistance of such materials. We present an analysis of the radiation heating, the thermoelastic stresses and the density of growth dislocations in the family of Ni-based alloys: NiCo–NiFe–NiCoFe–NiCoCr–NiCoFeCr–NiCoFeMnCr exposed to high-energy irradiation with 145 MeV Kr ions performed by numerical modeling. The results show that the composition complexity of the alloys, especially that of NiCoFeMnCr, favors the radiation annealing of defects, decreases the level of hazardous thermoelastic stresses relative to the ultimate strength, and reduces the growth dislocation density compared to that in Ni.