Irradiation of pre-existing voids in nanocrystalline iron

Understanding the role of voids is an important issue in lifetime predictions of materials which are exposed to irradiation. In this paper, we investigate the effect of a pre-existing void structure embedded in a grain boundary in computer generated nanocrystalline Fe samples in terms of nearby primary cascade evolution using molecular dynamics simulations. Results indicate that the void and grain boundaries act as sinks to self interstitial atoms formed from nearby displacement cascades.