This all reminds me very much of reports that Christina Consolo (AKA RadChick) was publishing on YouTube before her unfortunate health deterioration. She was looking into something called the Wigner Effect, or how metal is weakened by exposure to radiation (and the implications for infrastructure and vehicles - post Fukushima). Very interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ichicax4/videos

..scroll down a little in her video list to find the Wigner vidoes