Molecular Dynamics Study of Defect Evolution in Inconel 617 Alloy Under Successive Cascade Irradiation

Inconel 617 (IN617) is a promising structural material for advanced nuclear systems such as heat pipe-cooled reactors, but its fundamental defect evolution under neutron irradiation remains poorly understood. This study employs classical molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the atomic-scale irradiation damage mechanisms in a representative Ni–Cr–Co ternary model of IN617 under successive displacement cascades. The results reveal a near-linear accumulation of Frenkel pairs with dose, with the count increasing by a factor of approximately 24 from the first to the 75th cascade. A critical finding is the stark asymmetry in defect kinetics: interstitials rapidly coalesce into large clusters (with 88.4% of interstitials found in clusters of ≥ 2 atoms after 75 cascades), while vacancies remain predominantly isolated (constituting 68.8% of all vacancy defects). This disparity directly governs microstructural evolution, as interstitial cluster growth drives dislocation loop nucleation, leading to a linear rise in dislocation density to a saturated value of approximately 4.5 × 10−4 Å−2. The saturated dislocation structure subsequently undergoes continuous reorganization through reactions between partial dislocations. These insights demonstrate that irradiation hardening in IN617 under simulated conditions is governed primarily by interstitial-type defect clustering, providing a crucial mechanistic basis for assessing its performance in radiation environments.