It is meant usually that the main mechanisms of radiation physics are well-known already and new experimental facts of fundamental importance are rather improbable. In particular, the ion-plasma surface treatment of metal materials is wide-spread in industrial technologies and its effects on structure features of irradiated products are believed to be restricted by the surface layer of ion braking, having a thickness up to ~15 nm by ion energies of several KeV. Meantime, the layer-by-layer X-ray study has shown that irradiation of metal materials by low-energy ions is accompanied by the long-range effect, consisting in distinct texture and structure changes at the depth, exceeding, at least, by 10⁴-10⁵ times the thickness of the layer, where all ions prove to be stopped.     

Texture and structure changes in bulk of tubes from Zr-based alloys for nuclear reactors under the ion-plasma treatment by regimes, differing in the density of plasmic flow energy, were compared by methods of X-ray diffractometry. The systematic layer-by-layer X-ray study of treated tubes reveals distinguishing features of gradient structures, formed by the ion-plasma irradiation. Heating and the following cooling of the surface layer are accompanied by development of various processes, including melting, crystallization, amorphization, quenching, phase transformations. Ion irradiation exerts influence of two kinds on the substructure of tubes: it produces new defects in the recrystallized matrix, causing distortion of its crystalline lattice, and results in substructure perfection of cold-rolled tubes. Therefore, the character of structure changes, observed in bulk of treated tubes, depends on their initial condition (cold-rolled or recrystallized). The ion-plasma treatment of the deformed tube is accompanied by perfection of its substructure, as opposed to the case of the recrystallized tube. Positions and thickness of layers, characterized by domination of that or another processes, are seen by analysis of obtained X-ray data.

There are two effects, indicating to operation of the mechanism of shock waves, arising by ion retardation. The first effect consists in strengthening of the axial texture component over the whole thickness of tube’s wall (0.7 mm), the second effect – in suppression of the first one due to melting of the surface layer or in the tube from the Zr-based alloy, containing the fine-dyspersated intermetallic phase at the initial stage of precipitation. In both cases weakening and/or scattering of shock waves takes place, so that the layer of noticeable irradiation effects becomes thinner. The distorted crystalline lattice of the deformed tube suppresses the shock waves, produced by ions, by analogy with the effect of melted layer.

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