Primary radiation damage in bcc Fe and Fe–Cr crystals containing dislocation loops

Previous molecular dynamics studies of displacement cascades in Fe–Cr alloys have shown that the presence of Cr hardly affects the primary damage state as compared to pure Fe. In this work we studied the size distribution of self-interstitial clusters produced in cascades in Fe–Cr alloys containing 5–15% Cr, finding no statistically significant influence of Cr as compared to Fe. Moreover, since no significant differences due to the presence of Cr is found, we investigated the effect of cascades produced on pre-existing loops of ½〈1 1 1〉 and 〈1 0 0〉 interstitial-type in Fe. We found that the number of surviving Frenkel pairs decreases in the presence of loops, but only small loops can be dissolved by a cascade.