Fractal characteristics of fracture morphology of steels irradiated with high-energy ions

• Published in: Journal of nuclear materials Vol. 461; pp. 171 - 177
• Main Authors: Xian, Yongqiang, Liu, Juan, Zhang, Chonghong, Chen, Jiachao, Yang, Yitao, Zhang, Liqing, Song, Yin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.06.2015
• Subjects: Ferritic stainless steels; Fractal analysis; Fractals; Fracture surfaces; Irradiation; Matlab; Steels
• ISSN: 0022-3115; 1873-4820
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2015.03.022

•Fractal dimensions of fracture surfaces of steels before and after irradiation were calculated.•Fractal dimension can effectively describe change of fracture surfaces induced by irradiation.•Correlation of change of fractal dimension with embrittlement of irradiated steels is discussed. A fractal analysis of fracture surfaces of steels (a ferritic/martensitic steel and an oxide-dispersion-strengthened ferritic steel) before and after the irradiation with high-energy ions is presented. Fracture surfaces were acquired from a tensile test and a small-ball punch test (SP). Digital images of the fracture surfaces obtained from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to calculate the fractal dimension (FD) by using the pixel covering method. Boundary of binary image and fractal dimension were determined with a MATLAB program. The results indicate that fractal dimension can be an effective parameter to describe the characteristics of fracture surfaces before and after irradiation. The rougher the fracture surface, the larger the fractal dimension. Correlation of the change of fractal dimension with the embrittlement of the irradiated steels is discussed.