Study of change in beryllium oxide strength properties as a result of irradiation with heavy ions

The paper presents data on changes in strength properties, including data on microhardness, crack resistance, bending strength and wear of BeO ceramics as a result of irradiation with heavy accelerated ions. The following types of ions were selected as heavy ions: O2+ (28 MeV), Ar8+ (70 MeV), Kr15+ (147 MeV), Xe22+ (230 MeV). Radiation doses were 1013 -1015 ion/cm2 , which make it possible to assess the effect of both single defects arising from radiation, and cluster overlapping defective areas occurring at large radiation doses. During the studies carried out, it was found that an increase in the ion energy and, consequently, in the damaging ability and depth of the damaged area, leads to a sharp decrease in the strength mechanical characteristics of ceramics, which is due to an increase in defective areas in the material of the near-surface damaged layer. However, an increase in irradiation dose for all types of exposure results in an almost equilibrium decrease in strength characteristics and the same trend of change in strength characteristics. The obtained dependencies indicate that the proposed mechanisms responsible for changing the strength properties can, under certain assumptions, be extrapolated to various types of exposure to heavy ions in the energy range (25-250 MeV).