Ductile–brittle transition behaviors for the W-films-deposited stainless steel before and after hydrogen ion irradiation

Tungsten films were deposited on stainless steel with DC magnetron sputtering followed by argon ion beam bombardment. The ductile–brittle transition behavior of these specimens before and after hydrogen ion irradiation has been investigated by means of instrumented impact test at a series of temperature and SEM morphology observation. The results show that with decreasing temperature, the type of fracture was changed from ductile to brittle. The results on Ep and fracture time show that deposition of W film does not decrease the impact toughness of substrate. While measurements on Ei, Xmax and fracture morphologies show that it can effectively improve the impact toughness of stainless steel. Hydrogen ion irradiation led to a small decrease of impact toughness for the W-film-deposited stainless steel.