Recent status and improvement of reduced-activation ferritic-martensitic steels for high-temperature service

Reduced-activation ferritic-martensitic (RAFM) steels, candidate structural materials for fusion reactors, have achieved technological maturity after about three decades of research and development. The recent status of a few developmental aspects of current RAFM steels, such as aging resistance, plate thickness effects, fracture toughness, and fatigue, is updated in this paper, together with ongoing efforts to develop next-generation RAFM steels for superior high-temperature performance. In addition to thermo-mechanical treatments, including nonstandard heat treatment, alloy chemistry refinements and modifications have demonstrated some improvements in high-temperature performance. Castable nanostructured alloys (CNAs) were developed by significantly increasing the amount of nanoscale MX (M = V/Ta/Ti, X = C/N) precipitates and reducing coarse M23C6 (M = Cr). Preliminary results showed promising improvement in creep resistance and Charpy impact toughness. Limited low-dose neutron irradiation results for one of the CNAs and China low activation martensitic are presented and compared with data for F82H and Eurofer97 irradiated up to similar to 70 displacements per atom at similar to 300-325 degrees C