Softening Behaviors of Severely Deformed Zn Alloy Studied by the Nanoindentation

Zamak 3 alloy treatment by sliding-friction treatment (SFT) was investigated by nanoindentation to explore the influence of microstructure and strain rate on nanoscale deformation at room temperature. The results show that obvious material softening occurs in the ultrafine-grained (UFG) Zn alloy and strain-hardening happens in the twinning-deformed layer, respectively. It can be concluded that almost constant values of V in the UFG Zn alloy contribute to the dislocations moving along the grain boundary (GB) not cross the grain interior. In the twinning-deformed layer, the highly frequent dislocation–twinning boundary (TB) interactions are responsible for subsequent inverse Cottrell–Stokes at lower stress, which is quite different from dislocation–dislocation reaction inside the grain in their coarse-grained (CG) counterpart.

Dislocation Reaction Mechanism for Enhanced Strain Hardening in Crystal Nano-Indentations

Stress–strain calculations are presented for nano-indentations made in: (1) an ammonium perchlorate (AP), NH4ClO4, {210} crystal surface; (2) an α-iron (111) crystal surface; (3) a simulated test on an α-iron (100) crystal surface. In each case, the calculation of an exceptionally-enhanced plastic strain hardening, beyond that coming from the significant effect of small dislocation separations in the indentation deformation zone, is attributed to the formation of dislocation reaction obstacles hindering further dislocation movement. For the AP crystal, the exceptionally-high dislocation reaction-based strain hardening, relative to the elastic shear modulus, leads to (001) cleavage cracking in nano-, micro- and macro-indentations. For α-iron, the reaction of (a/2) <111> dislocations to form a [010] Burgers vector dislocation obstacles at designated {110} slip system intersections accounts for a higher strain hardening in both experimental and simulated nano-indentation test results. The α-iron stress–strain calculations are compared, both for the elastic deformation and plastic strain hardening of nano-indented (100) versus (111) crystal surfaces and include important observations derived from internally-tracked (a/2) <010> Burgers vector dislocation structures obtained in simulation studies. Additional comparisons are made between the α-iron calculations and other related strength properties reported either for bulk, micro-pillar, or additional simulated nano-crystal or heavily-drawn polycrystalline wire materials.

How hard metal becomes soft: crystallographic analysis on the mechanical behavior of ultra-coarse cemented carbide

Investigation into the temperature dependence of the mechanical behavior of ultra-coarse grained cemented carbide materials is highly demanded due to its service conditions of concurrent applied stress and high temperature. In the present study, based on the designed experiments and microstructural characterization combined with crystallographic analysis, the evolution of slip systems, motion and interaction of dislocations with temperature are quantified for the WC hard phase. Mechanisms are proposed for the formation of the sessile dislocations in the main slip systems at the room temperature and the glissile dislocations in the new slip systems activated at high temperatures. Furthermore, the correlation of the plastic strain and fracture toughness with the temperature-dependent slip activation, dislocation reaction and transformation is explained quantitatively. Enlightened by the present findings, potential approach to enhance the high-temperature strength of ultra-coarse cemented carbides based on WC strengthening was suggested.

Effect of Element Re on Creep Behaviour of a Single Crystal Nickel-Based Superalloy

By means of measuring creep curves and microstructure observation, the influence of the element Re on creep behaviour of the single crystal superalloy has been investigated. Results shown that the creep resistance of nickel-based superalloy with element Re may be obviously improved and the 2% Re superalloy had lower strain rate and longer creep lifetimes compared with Re-free single crystal alloy. The activation energy and stress exponent of the 2% Re superalloy during steady state creep were measured to be Q =478.6 kJ/mol and n = 5.1 respectively. The deformed features of the 2% Re alloy during primary creep are dislocation slipping in the matrix channels, dislocation networks are formed by dislocation reaction, and creep resistance may be improved when networks on the γ/γ’ phases interfaces. In the tertiary creep stage, deformation mechanism is the <110> super-dislocation shearing into the rafted γ’ phase.