Oh, so you've seen the affects of a neutron impacting a proton or neutron at high velocity? It sounds like you know how that works. Those bonds in steel are fine for stopping a bullet. That neutron doesn't target bonds or anything else. It's just a freight train plowing into whatever gets in it's way. It could care less what exotic super steel we've made. When it does make impact, whatever it is just blew apart into nothing but protens neutrons and electrons all reasembling into whatever makes it stable again.
[–] ACatIsFineToo ago
I can't really give a personal background without doxing myself, and it's the internet so I could easily be lying. But yes, it's a subject I have some knowledge about, though not my direct field. It's not at all like a freight train, it's an extremely small extremely fast moving particle. It can cause fission in some cases, of the single atom it hits. This would cause a substitution in the lattice, as well as often entrained helium remaining. It can also cause that atom to displace, causing a dislocation in the crystalline matrix. Neutron bombardment does not cause materials to disintegrate.
I'm trying to find good sources that aren't behind a paywall. This one is older and long - the relevant part starts around page 100 of the PDF. Libgen with the search term "neutron embrittlement" should bring up a wide range of papers that can be downloaded as PDFs.
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/07/222/7222068.pdf?r=1&r=1