A Revisit to the Notation of Martensitic Crystallography

As one of the most successful crystallographic theories for phase transformations, martensitic crystallography has been widely applied in understanding and predicting the microstructural features associated with structural phase transformations. In a narrow sense, it was initially developed based on the concepts of lattice correspondence and invariant plane strain condition, which is formulated in a continuum form through linear algebra. However, the scope of martensitic crystallography has since been extended; for example, group theory and graph theory have been introduced to capture the crystallographic phenomena originating from lattice discreteness. In order to establish a general and rigorous theoretical framework, we suggest a new notation system for martensitic crystallography. The new notation system combines the original formulation of martensitic crystallography and Dirac notation, which provides a concise and flexible way to understand the crystallographic nature of martensitic transformations with a potential extensionality. A number of key results in martensitic crystallography are reexamined and generalized through the new notation.

Ordered γ-brass structures coexisting with the decagonal quasicrystal in a Ga46Fe23Cu23Si8 alloy

In a moderately rapidly solidified Ga46Fe23Cu23Si8 alloy, a face-centered-cubic (fcc) superstructure (a = 1.78 nm) and a hexagonal superstructure (ahex = 2.18 nm and chex = 0.77 nm), based on the same body-centered-cubic (bcc) γ-brass structure (a = 0.89 nm), were found—by means of micro-area electron diffraction—to coexist with the decagonal quasicrystal. The fcc superstructure is probably similar to one of the F-centered-γ-brass structure and has a parallel orientation relationship with the bcc fundamental structure. The hexagonal superstructure has its (001) parallel to the (111) of the bcc γ-brass structure and its chex = abcc[111]/2, and their lattice correspondence relationship has been derived. Electron diffraction evidence is presented to show that these two superstructures are possibly crystalline approximants of the decagonal quasicrystal.

Ordered Omega Derivatives in (Zr3Al)-Nb Alloys

ABSTRACTVarious kinds of phase transformations, viz., spinodal decomposition, omega transformation, precipitation reactions and martensitic transformation can be induced in ternary (Zr3Al) -Nb alloys in conditions far removed from equilibrium. Transformation sequences in alloys containing 3% niobium are described and rationalized in terms of some basic tendencies such as phase separation and chemical ordering in the β (bcc) phase and displacive omega and β to α (hcp) transformations. Microstructures of rapidly solidified alloy showed a distribution of cuboidal (D88 phase) particles in the β matrix. The periodic arrangement of these particles along the <100>β directions was indicative of a spinodal transformation which preceded their formation. The β → D88 transformation could be accomplished by the superimposition of three processes, namely, chemical ordering, lattice collapse akin to ω transformation and vacancy ordering. During isothermal aging the D88 phase transformed into the B82 phase. The observed lattice correspondence and transformation morphology suggested that the D88 to B82 structural change involved the replacement of structural vacancies in the former by zirconium atoms without any reconstitution of the lattice. The evolution of the equilibrium Zr3Al (L12 structure) phase during prolonged aging were also studied.