The experimental results also showed the formation of dislocation
loops that take place within the cascade damage region and
the hardening of CW 316 SS after Xe26+ irradiation. According to
previously reported results, irradiation hardening is considered to
be due to the formation of irradiation induced defects, which can
act as obstacles to the free movement of dislocations [2,34,35].
The hardness increment and the yield strength due to dislocation
loops could be calculated based on the dispersed barrier hardening
(DBH) model [36,37]. The contribution of defects to the hardening
can be estimated using the Orowan equation [34,38