Decoupling the Impacts of Strain Rate and Temperature on TRIP in a Q&P Steel

The individual effects of strain rate and temperature on the strain hardening rate of a quenched and partitioned steel have been examined. During quasistatic tests, resistive heating was used to simulate the deformation-induced heating that occurs during high-strain-rate deformation, while the deformation-induced martensitic transformation was tracked by a combination of x-ray and electron backscatter diffraction. Unique work hardening rates under various thermal–mechanical conditions are discussed, based on the balance between the concurrent dislocation slip and transformation-induced plasticity deformation mechanisms. The diffraction and strain hardening data suggest that the imposed strain rate and temperature exhibited dissonant influences on the martensitic phase transformation. Increasing the strain rate appeared to enhance the martensitic transformation, while increasing the temperature suppressed the martensitic transformation.

Effect of Discontinuous Yielding on the Strain Hardening Behavior of Fine-Grained Twinning-Induced Plasticity Steel

The yielding of a high Mn twinning-induced plasticity steel was examined in three fine-grained specimens recrystallized at 700°C for 5 min with different cooling conditions. While the stress-strain curves of furnace-cooled and air-cooled specimens exhibit a stress drop at yielding, the drop was not observed in the water-quenched specimen. A simple analysis of the displacement data indicates the occurrence of localized deformation at the beginning of the plastic deformation in the three tensile specimens with different cooling conditions. The localized deformation of all three specimens was confirmed as Lüders strain by digital image correlation (DIC) analysis. Based on this observation, the role of yielding behavior on the strain hardening rate evolution at an early stage of the tensile deformation was discussed.

Mechanical Performance and Microstructural Evolution of (NiCo)75Cr17Fe8Cx (x = 0~0.83) Medium Entropy Alloys at Room and Cryogenic Temperatures

We investigated the effects of the addition of Co and carbon on the deformation behavior of new medium-entropy alloys (MEAs) designed by increasing the entropy of the conventional NiCrFe-type Alloy 600. The strength/ductility combination of carbon-free (NiCo)75Cr17Fe8 MEA was found to be 729 MPa/81% at 298 K and it increased to a remarkable 1212 MPa/106% at 77 K. The excellent strength and ductility of (NiCo)75Cr17Fe8 at cryogenic temperature is attributed to the increased strain hardening rate caused by the interaction between dislocation slip and deformation twins. Strength/ductility combinations of carbon-doped (NiCo)75Cr17Fe8C0.34 and (NiCo)75Cr17Fe8C0.83 at cryogenic temperature were observed to be 1321 MPa/96% and 1398 MPa/66%, respectively, both of which are superior to those of other high-entropy alloys (HEAs). Strength/ductility combinations of (NiCo)75Cr17Fe8C0.34 and (NiCo)75Cr17Fe8C0.83 at room temperature were found to be 831 MPa/72% and 942 MPa/55%, respectively and both are far superior to 676 MPa/41% of the commercial Alloy 600. Yield strengths of carbon-free and carbon-doped alloys comprised strengthening components from the friction stress, grain size strengthening, carbide strengthening and interstitial strengthening and excellent agreement between the predictions and the experiments was obtained. A design strategy to develop new MEAs by increasing the entropy of the conventional alloys was found to be effective in enhancing the mechanical performance.

Effect of Carbides and γ/γ' Eutectic on Crack Initiation and Propagation in Ni-based Superalloy

The Ni-based Udemit720Li superalloy tends to form large γ/γ' eutectic on grain boundaries (GBs) during solidification due to the addition of excessive Al and Ti elements, which provides convenience to study the effect of carbide and γ/γ' eutectic on crack initiation and propagation during tensile process. In this paper, Udemit720Li superalloy samples were prepared by induction melting casting method, arc melting and suction casting method. The microstructure, tensile properties and mechanism of crack initiation and propagation in Ni-based superalloy fabricated by two methods are investigated. The results exhibit γ/γ' eutectic accelerates the stress concentration at GB and thus leads to premature fracture failure. The samples with grain-boundary eutectic have higher strain hardening rate, but their cumulative and local misorientations are lower. For samples without eutectic at GB, the primary crack initiates at grain-boundary carbide along GB and extends along GB or into grain matrix, and exhibits better deformation performance and dislocation storage capacity within grains.

Dynamic Tension Deformation of Rare-Earth Containing Mg-1.9Mn-0.3Ce Alloy Sheet along the Rolling Direction at Various Temperatures

The tensile properties of rare-earth containing Mg-1.9Mn-0.3Ce alloy sheet along the rolling direction were experimentally investigated within the strain rate and temperature ranges of 0.001–1300 s−1 and 213–488 K. The obtained stress-strain responses of the alloy sheet indicate that both yield strength and strain-hardening rate increase when the strain rate increases, whereas they decrease with increase of temperature. Microscopic examination results show that basal slip, prismatic slip, and {101¯2} tension twinning take place in the tensile plastic deformation, while the occurrence of twinning is not obviously affected by the rate and temperature. Tensile samples tend to fracture in a ductile mode with increasing strain rate and temperature.

Crystallographic Orientation Dependence of Mechanical Responses of FeCrAl Micropillars

Iron-chromium-aluminum (FeCrAl) alloys are used in automobile exhaust gas purifying systems and nuclear reactors due to its superior high-temperature oxidation and excellent corrosion resistance. Single-phase FeCrAl alloys with a body centered cubic structure plastically deform through dislocation slips at room temperature. Here, we investigated the orientation dependence of mechanical responses of FeCrAl alloy through testing single-crystal and bi-crystal micropillars in a scanning electron microscopy at room temperature. Single-crystal micropillars were fabricated with specific orientations which favor the activity of single slip system or two slip systems or multiple slip systems. The strain hardening rate and flow strength increase with increasing the number of activated slip system in micropillars. Bi-crystal micropillars with respect to the continuity of slip systems across grain boundary were fabricated to study the effect of grain boundary on slip transmission. The high geometrical compatibility factor corresponds to a high flow strength and strain hardening rate. Experimental results provide insight into understanding mechanical response of FeCrAl alloy and developing the mechanisms-based constitutive laws for FeCrAl polycrystalline aggregates.

A complete elastic-plastic spherical asperity contact model with the effect of isotropic strain hardening

Understanding the deformation behavior of rough surface contacts is essential to minimise the tribological consequences of contacts. Mostly, statistical, deterministic and fractal approaches are adopted to explore the contact of rough surfaces. In statistical approach, a single asperity contact model is developed and extended to the whole surface. In the present work, a deformable spherical asperity contact with a rigid flat is modeled and analysed by accounting the combined effect of Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, yield strength and isotropic strain hardening rate using finite element method. The results reveal that the elastic, elastoplastic and plastic contact states are highly influenced by E/Y ratio and strain hardening rate followed by Poisson’s ratio. The dimensionless contact radius is an inadequate parameter to explore the combined effect of material properties. For all E/Y ratio and Poisson’s ratio, as the strain hardening rate increases, the dimensionless contact area decreases for the same dimensionless contact load at elastoplastic and fully plastic contact states. As the strain hardening rate increases, the fully plastic contact state is reached at low dimensionless interference compared to elastic perfectly plastic materials for all E/Y ratio and Poisson’s ratio. For a common elastic-plastic material, empirical relations are developed to calculate the contact load and contact area appropriately with E/Y ratio, Poisson’s ratio and interference ratio as input variables. It can be utilised to study the interaction of rough surface contacts for most of the practical materials.

A phenomenological model utilizing Voce’s strain-hardening model describing high strain rate behavior of alloy 800H during hot working

In this study, a simple mathematical model is introduced to predict the stress–strain curves under the occurrence of minor dynamic recrystallization. In this regard, first, with the assumption of nonlinear variation of strain-hardening rate versus strain, a mathematical equation was derived to obtain the strain-hardening rate. Then, using the Voce’s equation, a new mathematical model was developed to predict the hot deformation behavior of metallic alloys at high strain rates. The most important feature of the proposed model is its simplicity so that the only constant of the stress–strain equation can easily be interpolated at different temperatures and strain rates. Accordingly, it was found that the defined material constant varies linearly and exponentially with strain rate and temperature, respectively. The high correlation factors (average correlation factor, r2 = 0.85) obtained from regression analysis showed that the model can provide a precise estimation of flow stress curves for the defined deformation conditions.