Enhanced mechanical property and radiation resistance of reduced graphene oxide/tungsten composite with nacre-like architecture

Abstract Nuclear materials combining excellent mechanical property and radiation resistance are highly demanded. Here, inspired natural nacre, we fabricated reduced graphene oxide/tungsten composite (RGO/W) with laminated structure by powder metallurgy (PM) method. The relationship between structure design, mechanical hardness and radiation-induced hardening of RGO/W composite were evaluated by nanoindentation. Results revealed that mechanical hardness of nacre-like RGO/W composite was enhanced by 76% in comparison with nacre-like W and was similar to commercial W. Further, under 28.92 displacement per atom (DPA), hardening rate of nacre-like RGO/W composite was lower (18.6%) than that of nacre-like W (129.2%) and commercial W (40.1%). Reasons were attributed to reinforcement effect of RGO and nacre-like structure, which provided numerous RGO-W interfaces as load bearer and helped heal radiation-induced defects. Our work highlights a promising structure design strategy for enhancing damage resistance and mechanical property of nuclear materials by designing nacre-like architecture.