Role of thermal stress-driven dislocation and low-angle grain boundary migration in surface plastic deformation and grain orientation evolution of tungsten under thermal shock

Abstract

This study reveals that thermal fatigue loading (transient thermal shock), similar to that in fusion environments, can serve as a surface processing technique for BCC metals. Regions with a {110} grain orientation can be selectively achieved in varying sizes and locations on the sample surface. Furthermore, our experiments confirm that the specific localized orientation transformation obtained through this method exhibits certain high-temperature stability at 1573 K (above the recrystallization temperature of tungsten). The experiment employed a 0.25 GW/m² high-energy pulsed electron beam for 1 ms to cyclically load the tungsten surface, simulating edge localized mode events in fusion conditions. It was found that tungsten exhibited significant surface grain orientation transformation (distinct {110} grain orientation) under low strain (∼ 1 %) after transient thermal shocks, a phenomenon rarely mentioned in studies of thermal shock on fusion reactor divertor materials. Microstructure characterization results suggest that this localized orientation transformation, induced by minor surface damage, primarily results from the generation, movement, and evolution of dislocations into subgrain and low-angle grain boundaries. The cyclic accumulation of the migration of kink-like subgrain/low-angle grain boundaries under transient thermal stress at high temperatures drives this process. Subsequently, crystal plasticity finite element method simulations based on dislocation slip were conducted to study the surface grain orientation transformation of tungsten under compressive thermal stress. This predictive capability provides valuable guidance for understanding the service conditions of fusion reactor divertor materials. Furthermore, we propose that cyclic transient thermal shocks can serve as an effective surface processing technique for metals, enabling the formation of specific localized grain orientations.