Exploring the Effect of Irradiation Time on the Damping of Surface Acoustic Waves

Abstract

Finding relationships between material structure and properties is a key discipline of materials science. Many methods have been used to examine material properties, including transient grating spectroscopy (TGS). These properties were used to probe several scales of structure, and TGS has been applied in this way to solve several challenges. This thesis explores the details of the TGS signal itself, and how the property of irradiation time affects different qualities of the signal. In particular, the acoustic damping parameter is scrutinized in relation to the irradiation time of the samples from Byron Nuclear Generating Station. The trend was found to be similar to that of other material properties when compared with irradiation time, denoting the creation and subsequent clustering of defects. Further research with higher granularity into the relationship is suggested in order to further the development of nondestructive evaluation techniques.