A. I. UstinovUDC 539.67Results of studies of the effect of the size of micro-and substructure elements (grains, twin domains, etc) on the dissipative properties of materials have been generalized. It has been shown that when the size of the microstructure elements of materials decreases to nanoscale, their dissipative properties change qualitatively. This is due to a change in mechanical energy dissipation mechanism on the transition of material to nanostructured state. The possibility of creating a new class of highly damping hard coatings based on nanostructured materials is discussed.
Introduction.To reduce the resonance vibration amplitude of both individual parts and the mechanical system as a whole, e.g., gas turbine engine (GTE), structural methods of mechanical energy dissipation, which are based on friction between individual elements of the system, are widely used [1]. At the same time, efficient vibration energy dissipation can also be achieved by the deposition of thin coatings of highly damping materials on the surface of parts subjected to large vibratory loads, e.g., on GTE compressor blades [2,3]. A difficulty in the realization of this approach is caused by the absence of materials which are characterized not only by a high damping level, but also by large values of hardness, endurance limit, etc. Moreover, to realize it, processes are required which deposit such coatings on structural members. The highly damping materials developed earlier [3] have no necessary set of properties, which prevents their use as coatings for GTE parts.To achieve a high strength of material, its substructure elements (dislocations, twin boundaries, interfaces, magnetic-domain boundaries, etc) must remain immobile at as high stresses as possible. On the other hand, to ensure a high damping level, the substructure elements must be mobile already at low stresses. It follows that high strength and high damping capacity in the same material appear to be in certain measure mutually exclusive.Nevertheless, some ceramic and metal-ceramic materials formed as coatings under definite deposition conditions are characterized by the combination of high hardness and high mechanical energy dissipation level [4,5]. Since these materials were deposited under conditions which ensured a high grain dispersity and the presence of various defects at grain boundaries, it may be assumed that the high level of energy dissipation in such coatings may be associated with reduction in the size of their micro-and substructure elements [5].It is known at present that the deformation behavior of material can change greatly with decreasing grain size on reaching a certain critical value, causing, e.g., violation of the Hall-Petch law [6]. This is accounted for by the fact that in fine-grained (nanostructured) materials, the processes that develop at grain boundaries, which are attributed to generation of grain boundary dislocations, grain boundary sliding, etc, become predominant [6]. It can be expected that when the grain size decreases below a def...