Energetic program of Russia and a series of other countries, for example, China and India, supposes building of new generation fast-neutron reactors in the XXI century (in Russia these are reactors BN-800, BN-1200 and others). The distinctive features of these facilities are economic characteristics reached by high burnup of the nuclear fuel. But there is a serious problem: for projecting of such reactors the development of new, radiation-resisting and at the same time heatproof construction materials for active reactor zones is needed.

In the past decades the whole world conducts intensive research and development in another direction – the creation of steels on the chromic basis because swelling of such steels is a way lower than of austentic class ones. However, the research has shown that chromic steels have their disadvantage – they have low heat resistance in comparison with austentic steels under conditions typical for active zones of fast-neutron reactors.

To solve this task, employees of MEPhI Department “Physical problems of material sciences” have put their effort into creation of oxide-dispersion-strengthened heatproof radiation stable chromic steels on martensite, ferrite-martensite or ferrite basis. According to the scientists’ expectations, this material should give certain advantages in mechanical and heatproof properties compared with traditionally used chromic steels.

In the process of further studies a group of employees consisting of the Head of the Department Professor B.A. Kalin, Professor I.I. Chernov, Associate Professor M.S. Staltsov and post-graduate student I.A. Bogachev for the first time in Russia has managed to make ittrium-oxide-dispersion-strengthened reactor ferrite-martensite steel on the basis of chromic steel EP-450 – a reactor steel of new generation.

Above: Professor of MEPhI Department “Physical problems of material sciences” I.I. Chernov in front of the facility for spark-plasma sintering of powders LABOX-625™ (Japan)

MEPhI development has provoked a great interest in the scientific world. The results of the conducted research have been published in more than 10 journals which are in the Web of Science and Scopus list. Here are some of them:

1. Bogachev I., Yudin A., Grigoriev E., Chernov I., Staltsov M. Microstructure properties of EP-450 ODS steel manufactured by highvoltage discharge compaction technique. Physics Procedia, 2015, v. 72, p. 366-369.

2. Igor Bogachev, Artem Yudin, Evgeniy Grigoryev, Ivan Chernov, Maxim Staltsov, Oleg Khasanov, Eugene Olevsky. Microstructure investigation of 13Cr-2Mo ODS steel components obtained by high voltage electric discharge compaction technique. Materials, 2015, v. 8, p. 7342–7353.

3. Chernov I.I., Staltsov M.S., Kalin B.A., Bogachev I.A., Burlakova M.A., Sokolova N.A., Krikun E.V., Shuvalov D.B., Skrytnyi V.I., Olevskii E.A., Ageev V.S. Effect of the initial powder and treatment on the structure of oxide dispersion-strengthened steel. Atomic Energy, 2014, v. 116, No. 1, р. 42-47.