Abstract：Nuclear energy is one of the most ideal energy for humans and plays an important role in the world's power supply. Irradiation, induced by nuclear fission or nuclear fusion, causes damage in materials. This significantly affects the mechanical properties of materials, leading to irradiation hardening, embrittlement, creep, swelling and other phenomena. It is urgent to establish the theory of plasticity mechanics and damage mechanics under extreme irradiation conditions, in order to predict the service life of irradiated materials and design new irradiation resistant materials. Molecular dynamics provides numerous valuable information for understanding atomic-level interaction mechanisms in irradiated materials. However, it is difficult to establish mechanical theoretical models directly, due to the limitation of the considered temporal and spatial scale. Crystalline plastic finite element method can be used to predict the mechanical response of irradiated materials, but this kind of method is based on given physical models, and needs to obtain parameters through fitting experimental data. On the other hand, dislocation dynamics method connects nanomechanics with continuum mechanics. For large quantities of microstructures, it is a powerful method to reveal their cumulative interaction mechanisms, making it possible to establish the theory of plasticity mechanics and damage mechanics based on physical mechanisms. Dislocation dynamics method originated in the 1980s. At first, it was mainly used to study the short-range and long-range interactions between dislocations, and calculate the plastic deformation, hardening, softening, and plastic flow localization caused by dislocation movement. This article will summarize three methods of coupling dislocation dynamics and irradiation damage field, then gives a systematic overview about the recent studies of irradiation hardening, plastic flow localization, grain boundary effects, temperature effects through this method.
2020, Vol. 41 
