Effect of solute atoms on grain boundary sliding in magnesium alloys

The effect of solid-solution alloying on grain boundary sliding (GBS) was investigated using pure magnesium and six kinds of Mg–X (X?=?Ag, Al, Li, Pb, Y and Zn) dilute binary solid solutions with an average grain size of 10?µm. A sharp increase in damping capacity caused by GBS was observed above a certain temperature. The temperature at which a sharp increase in damping capacity occurred depended on the alloying element. The addition of Y and Ag markedly increased the onset temperature (more than 100?K) for a sharp increase in damping capacity, whereas the addition of Zn, Al and Li slightly increased the onset temperature (less than 50?K) as compared with that for pure magnesium. Tensile tests at a temperature of 423?K revealed that the higher the onset temperature, the lower the strain rate sensitivity of the flow stress. It is suggested that the former elements (Y and Ag) are more effective in suppressing GBS in magnesium alloys than the latter ones (Zn, Al and Li). The suppression of GBS was associated with low grain boundary energy, and the extent to which the energy is reduced depended on the alloying element. It was suggested that the change in the lattice parameter (the so-called c/a ratio) affects the grain boundary energy, and thus, the occurrence of GBS.     

Elastic moduli of nanocrystalline binary Al alloys with Fe,Co, Ti,Mg and Pb alloying elements

The paper studies the elastic moduli of nanocrystalline (NC) Al and NC binary Al–X alloys (X is Fe, Co, Ti, Mg or Pb) by using molecular dynamics simulations. X atoms in the alloys are either segregated to grain boundaries (GBs) or distributed randomly as in disordered solid solution. At 0 K, the rigidity of the alloys increases with decrease in atomic radii of the alloying elements. An addition of Fe, Co or Ti to the NC Al leads to increase in the Young’s E and shear μ moduli, while an alloying with Pb decreases them. The elastic moduli of the alloys depend on a distribution of the alloying elements. The alloys with the random distribution of Fe or Ti demonstrate larger E and μ than those for the corresponding alloys with GB segregations, while the rigidity of the Al–Co alloy is higher for the case of the GB segregations. The moduli E and μ for polycrystalline aggregates of Al and Al–X alloys with randomly distributed X atoms are estimated based on the elastic constants of corresponding single-crystals according to the Voigt-Reuss-Hill approximation, which neglects the contribution of GBs to the rigidity. The results show that GBs in NC materials noticeably reduce their rigidity. Furthermore, the temperature dependence of μ for the NC Al–X alloys is analyzed. Only the Al–Co alloy with GB segregations shows the decrease in μ to the lowest extent in the temperature range of 0–600 K in comparison with the NC pure Al.     

Precipitation and fracture behaviour of Fe–Mn–Ni–Al alloys

The effects of Al addition on the precipitation and fracture behaviour of Fe–Mn–Ni alloys were investigated. With the increasing of Al concentration, the matrix and grain boundary precipitates changed from L1₀ θ-MnNi to B2 Ni₂MnAl phase, which is coherent and in cube-to-cube orientation relationship with the α′-matrix. Due to the suppression of the θ-MnNi precipitates at prior austenite grain boundaries (PAGBs), the fracture mode changed from intergranular to transgranular cleavage fracture. Further addition of Al resulted in the discontinuous growth of Ni₂MnAl precipitates in the alloy containing 4.2?wt.% Al and fracture occurred by void growth and coalescence, i.e. by ductile dimple rupture. The transition of the fracture behaviour of the Fe–Mn–Ni–Al alloys is discussed in relation to the conversion of the precipitates and their discontinuous precipitation behaviour at PAGBs.     

Dependence of grain boundary character distribution on the initial grain size of 304 austenitic stainless steel

Abstract

In order to study the dependence of the grain boundary character distributions (GBCD) on the grain size, annealing treatment was carried out on 304 austenitic stainless steel with different initial grain sizes. The evolution of the GBCD was analysed by electron backscatter diffraction. The experimental results showed that abnormal grain growth (AGG) occurred when grain size was small. With a smaller initial grain size, the number density of abnormally large grains and the fraction of low-Σ CSL boundaries increased but the size of abnormally large grains decreased and the random boundaries presented a continuous network. With a larger initial grain size, the fraction of low-Σ CSL boundaries also increased as well as the size of abnormally large grains but the number density of abnormally large grains decreased and the connectivity of random boundary network was disrupted by low-Σ CSL boundaries, especially Σ3ⁿ (n = 1, 2, 3) boundaries. However, with a very large initial grain size, normal grain growth (NGG) occurred, which had no effect on the fraction of low-Σ CSL boundaries and the connectivity of random boundary network.     

Grain boundary relaxation in fine-grained magnesium solid solutions

Grain boundary relaxation at elevated temperatures in fine-grained pure magnesium and Mg–Al solid solutions was investigated by measuring damping capacity at low frequencies. A sharp increase in damping capacity caused by grain boundary relaxation was observed at above a certain temperature. The onset temperature depended on aluminum content; the onset temperature increased with aluminum content. It was demonstrated that aluminum was effective in suppressing grain boundary relaxation in magnesium alloys. However, additional measurement of the damping capacity of a dilute Mg–Y alloy revealed that yttrium was more effective in suppressing grain boundary relaxation.     

Grain boundary sliding during ambient-temperature creep in hexagonal close-packed metals

Even at ambient temperature or less, below their 0.2% proof stresses all hexagonal close-packed metals and alloys show creep behaviour because they have dislocation arrays lying on a single slip system with no tangled dislocation inside each grain. In this case, lattice dislocations move without obstacles and pile-up in front of a grain boundary. Then these dislocations must be accommodated at the grain boundary to continue creep deformation. Atomic force microscopy revealed the occurrence of grain boundary sliding (GBS) in the ambient-temperature creep region. Lattice rotation of 5° was observed near grain boundaries by electron backscatter diffraction pattern analyses. Because of an extra low apparent activation energy of 20 kJ/mol, conventional diffusion processes are not activated. To accommodate these piled-up dislocations without diffusion processes, lattice dislocations must be absorbed by grain boundaries through a slip-induced GBS mechanism.     

Ab initio modelling of the interaction of H interstitials with grain boundaries in bcc Fe

Hydrogen that is accumulated within the grain boundaries can lead to a decrease of the critical strain required to fracture the material. The paper presents results of ab initio modelling of hydrogen–grain boundary interaction in ferromagnetic bcc iron. Modelling was performed using density functional theory with generalised gradient approximation (GGA’96), as implemented in WIEN2k package. Three fully relaxed tilt grain boundaries, Σ5(310), Σ5(210) and Σ3(111), were studied. The supercells contained 40–48 atoms, i.e. 20–24 atoms in each of the two ‘grains’. Calculated formation energies of grain boundaries is 1.44, 1.83 and 1.46 J/m² and the maximum binding (trapping) energies of hydrogen to the boundaries are 0.43, 0.83 and 0.39 eV, respectively. These values are close to other researchers’ data. The higher value of trapping energy of the Σ5(210) boundary is probably due to the asymmetrical atom configurations resulting from mutual rigid shift of the two grains that was necessary to be introduced to provide optimal distances between Fe atoms, unlike the other two boundary types.     

Brittle fracture in 50Mo–50Re alloys during slow strain rate tensile testing

Tensile tests were conducted on 50 wt% Mo–50 wt% Re alloys in both fully recrystallized and recovery heat-treated conditions at a low strain rate of 10^?6 s^?1 and room temperature in air. It was found that both material conditions exhibited predominantly cleavage fracture with significant intergranular secondary cracking, compared to the predominantly ductile fracture found in the alloys at a higher strain rate. Cracks were often initiated at grain boundary triple junctions at the low strain rate. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) measurements revealed significantly high misorientation gradients (i.e. highly localized change in orientation) at grain boundaries, especially in the vicinity of some grain boundary triple junctions in the deformed alloys. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results verified the existence of significant misorientations near grain boundaries in these alloys. Stress-assisted dynamic embrittlement, possibly due to trace interstitials, was the possible cause of brittle fracture in the 50Mo–50Re alloys at the low strain rate.     

Σ3 CSL boundary distributions in an austenitic stainless steel subjected to multidirectional forging followed by annealing

The effect of processing and annealing temperatures on the grain boundary characters in the ultrafine-grained structure of a 304-type austenitic stainless steel was studied. An S304H steel was subjected to multidirectional forging (MDF) at 500–800°C to total strains of ~4, followed by annealing at 800–1,000°C for 30 min. The MDF resulted in the formation of ultrafine-grained microstructures with mean grain sizes of 0.28–0.85 μm depending on the processing temperature. The annealing behaviour of the ultrafine-grained steel was characterized by the development of continuous post-dynamic recrystallization including a rapid recovery followed by a gradual grain growth. The post-dynamically recrystallized grain size depended on both the deformation temperature and the annealing temperature. The recrystallization kinetics was reduced with an increase in the temperature of the preceding deformation. The grain growth during post-dynamic recrystallization was accompanied by an increase in the fraction of Σ3ⁿ CSL boundaries, which was defined by a relative change in the grain size, i.e. a ratio of the annealed grain size to that evolved by preceding warm working (D/D₀). The fraction of Σ3ⁿ CSL boundaries sharply rose to approximately 0.5 in the range of D/D₀ from 1 to 5, which can be considered as early stage of continuous post-dynamic recrystallization. Then, the rate of increase in the fraction of Σ3ⁿ CSL boundaries slowed down significantly in the range of D/D₀ > 5. A fivefold increase in the grain size by annealing is a necessary condition to obtain approximately 50% Σ3ⁿ CSL boundaries in the recrystallized microstructure.     

Analysis of slip activity and heterogeneous deformation in tension and tension-creep of Ti–5Al–2.5Sn (wt %) using in-situ SEM experiments

The deformation behavior of a Ti–5Al–2.5Sn (wt %) near-α alloy was investigated during in-situ deformation inside a scanning electron microscope. Tensile experiments were performed at 296?K and 728?K (≈0.4?T _m), while tensile-creep experiments were performed at 728?K and 763?K. Active deformation systems were identified using electron backscattered diffraction-based slip trace analysis. Both basal and prismatic slip systems were active during the tensile experiments. Basal slip was observed for grains clustered around high Schmid factor orientations, while prismatic slip exhibited less dependence on the crystallographic orientation. The tension-creep experiments revealed less slip but more development of grain boundary ledges than in the higher strain rate tensile experiments. Some of the grain boundary ledges evolved into grain boundary cracks, and grain boundaries oriented nearly perpendicular to the tensile axis formed ledges earlier in the deformation process. Grain boundaries with high misorientations also tended to form ledges earlier than those with lower misorientations. Most of the grain boundary cracks formed in association with grains displaying hard orientations, where the c-axis was nearly perpendicular to the tensile direction. For the tension-creep experiments, pronounced basal slip was observed in the lower-stress creep regime and the activity of prismatic slip increased with increasing creep stress and temperature.     

Examination of the distribution of the tensile deformation systems in tension and tension-creep of Ti-6Al-4V (wt.%) at 296 K and 728 K

The deformation behaviour of an α + β Ti–6Al–4V (wt.%) alloy was investigated during in situ deformation inside a scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Tensile experiments were performed at 296 and 728 K (~0.4Tm), while a tensile-creep experiment was performed at 728 K and 310 MPa (σ/σ_ys = 0.74). The active deformation systems were identified using electron backscattered diffraction-based slip-trace analysis and SEM images of the specimen surface. The distribution of the active deformation systems varied as a function of temperature. Basal slip deformation played a major role in the tensile deformation behaviour, and the relative activity of basal slip increased with increasing temperature. For the 296 K tension deformation, basal slip was less active than prismatic slip, whereas this was reversed at 728 K. Twinning was observed in both the 296 and 728 K tension experiments; however, no more than 4% of the total deformation systems observed was twins. The tension-creep experiment revealed no slip traces, however grain boundary ledge formation was observed, suggesting that grain boundary sliding was an active deformation mechanism. The results of this work were compared with those from previous studies on commercially pure Ti, Ti–5Al–2.5Sn (wt.%) and Ti–8Al–1Mo–1V (wt.%), and the effects of alloying on the deformation behaviour are discussed. The relative amount of basal slip activity increased with increasing Al content.     

Microstructural evolution and thermal stability of Fe–Zr metastable alloys developed by mechanical alloying followed by annealing

The effect of Zr (up to 1 at.%) addition on the formation of Fe–Zr metastable alloys and their thermal stability were investigated for their possible nuclear applications. Fe–xZr (x = 0.25, 0.5, 1%) alloys were synthesised by mechanical alloying under a high-purity argon atmosphere using stainless steel grinding media in a SPEX 8000M high energy mill. The milling was conducted for 20 h with a ball-to-powder weight ratio of 10:1. The formation of metastable solid solutions after milling was confirmed from the change in the Gibbs free energy analysis as per Miedema’s model. The microstructural characterisation was carried out by analysis of X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The effect of Zr on the thermal stability of Fe–Zr alloys was investigated by extensive annealing experiments followed by microstructural analysis and microhardness measurements. The stabilisation was found to occur at 800 °C and thereafter, no significant change in the crystallite size was observed for the samples annealed between 800 and 1200 °C. The supersaturated solid solution, especially 1% Zr alloy, found to be highly stable up to 800 °C and the microhardness value of the same measured to be as high as 8.8 GPa corresponding to a crystallite size of 57 nm. The stabilisation effect has been discussed in the light of both the thermodynamic and kinetic mechanisms and the grain size stabilisation is attributed to the grain boundary segregation of Zr atoms and/or Zener pinning by nanoscale precipitation of the Fe₂Zr phase.     

Correlation among grain boundary character,carbide precipitation and deformation in Alloy 690

The correlation among grain boundary character, carbide precipitation and deformation in the grain boundary engineering (GBE) treated Alloy 690 samples with and without pre-deformation aged at 715^oC for 15?h was analysed by scanning electron microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction. The fraction of low Σ coincidence site lattice (CSL) grain boundary was enhanced by GBE treatment. The fraction of Σ3 grain boundary decreased, and most of Σ9 and Σ27 grain boundaries disappeared in the deformed GBE samples. After aging treatment, bigger carbide precipitated at coherent Σ3 grain boundary, however, most of plate-like carbide precipitated at incoherent Σ3 grain boundary disappeared in the pre-deformed GBE samples. The larger carbide precipitated on the random grain boundary in the 5% pre-deformed sample, while smaller carbide can be observed in the 15% pre-deformed sample. During the in situ tensile test of the aged GBE samples, grain boundary carbide migrated with the grain boundary migration. The slip bands go across Σ3 grain boundary directly, but cannot go across other grain boundaries. The high density of carbide plate precipitated near incoherent Σ3 and Σ9 grain boundaries can resist the evolution of slip bands. Compared to the Σ3 and Σ9 grain boundaries, Σ27 and random grain boundaries are more easily to form microcrack during deformation. The initiation of grain boundary microcrack not only related to the character of grain boundary but also related to the character of nearby grain boundaries. The phase interface of carbide and matrix is another region to initiate the microcrack.     

Bi，Sb合金化对AZ91镁合金组织、性能影响机理研究

利用大角重位点阵模型建立了AZ91镁合金α相［0001］对称倾斜晶界原子结构模型，应用实空间的连分数方法计算了Mg合金的总结构能，合金元素引起的环境敏感镶嵌能及原子间相互作用能，讨论了主要合金元素Al及Bi，Sb在AZ91中的合金化行为.计算结果表明，Al，Bi，Sb固溶于α相内或晶界区使总结构能都降低，起到固溶强化作用；合金元素在AZ91α相内趋于均匀分布，在晶界区易占位于三角椎上部.AZ91镁合金中加入Bi或Sb时，Bi或Sb比Al容易偏聚于晶界，从而抑制了Al在晶界的偏聚，促进基体中连续的Mg₁₇Al₁₂相的析出，提高AZ91合金室温性能； AZ91合金中(α相内和晶界区)主要合金元素Al和微加元素Bi，Sb都能够形成有序相Mg₁₇Al₁₂，Mg₃Bi₂或Mg₃Sb₂，且在晶界区形成的量大.Bi，Sb加入AZ91合金中，由于Bi，Sb抑制Al在晶界的偏聚，晶界区主要析出相为Mg₃Bi₂或Mg₃Sb₂，提高镁合金高温性能. 关键词： 电子理论 合金化 晶界偏聚 镁合组织与性能     

Rotational Analysis of the 1–4 Band of the B 2Σ+–X 2Σ+ System of 14C16O+

ABSTRACT

High-resolution emission spectrum of the 1–4 band of the B ²Σ⁺–X ²Σ⁺ transition of ¹⁴C¹⁶O⁺ was observed for the first time by conventional emission spectroscopy. The band spectrum was excited in a water-cooled Geissler lamp filled with commercial gaseous carbon monoxide enriched in about 80% of the radiocarbon ¹⁴C. A rotational analysis has been carried out and obtained molecular constants have been merged with previously published data for the B ²Σ⁺–A ²Π_i and A ²Π_i–X ²Σ⁺ transitions. The principal equilibrium constants for the ground X ²Σ⁺ state obtained from this work are ω_e = 2121.7726(98), ω_e x _e = 13.9055(27), B _e = 1.815290(30), α_e = 1.6594(33) × 10^?2, and γ_e = ? 0.377(73) × 10^?4 cm^?1. Also, presently known experimental equilibrium molecular constants of the X ²Σ⁺ states of the CO⁺ isotopic molecules are summarized and isotopic dependence of the B _e and ω _e constants is discussed.     

Texture evolution in Mg–Mn and Mg–Mn–Ce alloys and the effect of as-cast grain size

Texture evolution in rolled (400°C) and annealed (450°C) Mg–1% Mn-based alloys containing different levels of Ce was examined. It was found that Ce refines the as-cast and rolled/annealed grain structure. The overall intensity of the basal texture decreases with Ce additions in both the rolled and subsequently annealed condition. A strong relationship was found between maximum intensity (M) of rolling and annealing textures and the as-cast effective grain size, d?′, i.e. M?∝?e^{0.4 d ?′} (R ^2?=?0.8), which was attributed to the role of plastic compatibility stresses which lead to grain boundary deformation altering the balance of deformation modes. Contributions from Ce solute effects and lattice parameter changes are also discussed.     

Study of complex impedance spectroscopic properties of the KFeP2O7 compound

The KFeP₂O₇ compound was prepared by the conventional solid-state reaction. The sample was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction. The AC electrical conductivity and the dielectric relaxation properties of this compound have been investigated by means of impedance spectroscopy measurements over a wide range of frequencies and temperatures, 200 Hz–5 MHz and 553–699 K, respectively. Both impedance and modulus analysis exhibit the grain and grain boundary contribution to the electrical response of the sample. The temperature dependence of the bulk and grain boundary conductivity were found to obey the Arrhenius law with activation energies Eg?=?0.94 (3)?eV and Egb?=?0.89 (1)?eV. The grain-and-grain boundary conductivities at 573 K are 1.07?×?10^?4 and 1.16?×?10^?5 (Ω^?1 cm^?1). The scaling behavior of the imaginary part of the complex impedance suggests that the relaxation describes the same mechanism at various temperatures. The near value of the activation energies obtained from the equivalent circuit, conductivity data, and analysis of M″ confirms that the transport is through ion hopping mechanism.