Displacement damage in silicon carbide irradiated in fission reactors

Calculations are performed for displacement damage in SiC due to irradiation in the neutron environments of various types of nuclear reactors using the best available models and nuclear data. The displacement damage calculations use recently developed damage functions for SiC that are based on extensive molecular dynamics simulations of displacement events. Displacements per atom (DPA) cross sections for SiC have been calculated as a function of neutron energy, and they are presented here in tabular form to facilitate their use as the standard measure of displacement damage for irradiated SiC. DPA cross sections averaged over the neutron energy spectrum are calculated for neutron spectra in the cores of typical commercial reactors and in the test sample irradiation regions of several materials test reactors used in both past and present irradiation testing. Particular attention is focused on a next-generation high-temperature gas-cooled pebble bed reactor, for which the high-temperature properties of silicon carbide fiber-reinforced silicon carbide composites are well suited. Calculated transmutations and activation levels in a pebble bed reactor are compared to those in other reactors.