Investigation of Radiation Effects on Tungsten and Numerical methods to Determine Indentation Modulus

The purpose of this thesis is to obtain a better understanding of how radiation damages tungsten and tungsten alloys by comparing material properties of these materials before and after radiation as well as determining effective methods to obtain these material properties. Existing literature was reviewed to compare the differences in material properties of virgin and irradiated tungsten. Additionally, numerical analyses were performed on tungsten and tungsten-rhenium to determine indentation modulus. Abaqus was used to run finite element simulations and complex mathematics to replicating a series of indentations about the material of interest was coded into Python. The input of both of these methods were the elastic constants of the material in question, either tungsten or tungsten-rhenium, and the output was the indentation modulus