Influence of self-interstitial mobility on damage accumulation in zirconium under fission irradiation conditions

Irradiation of zirconium is studied using a kinetic Monte Carlo model. The initial cascade damage produced by 25 keV recoils at a temperature of 600 K obtained from molecular dynamics simulations is used in the calculations. The evolution of the microstructure under fission irradiation conditions has been followed for a number of displacements per atom (dpa) up to 0.5. In particular, the influence of self-interstitial cluster migration on the total defect concentration and size is analyzed. Results are compared with available experimental data.