Mechanical behavior of a bulk nanostructured iron alloy

Abstract

Bulk, fully dense materials were prepared from Fe-10Cu with grain diameters between 45 nm and 1.7 m. The materials were prepared by ball milling of powders in a glove box, followed by hot isostatic pressing (hipping) or powder forging. Larger grain sizes were obtained by thermal treatment of the consolidated powders. The bulk materials were relatively clean, with oxygen levels below 1500 wpm and other contaminants less than 0.1 at. pct. The mechanical behavior of these materials was unique. At temperatures from 77 to 470 K, the first and only mechanism of plastic deformation was intense shear banding, which was accompanied by a perfectly plastic stress-strain response (absence of strain hardening). There was a large tension-compression asymmetry in the strength, and the shear bands did not occur on the plane of maximum shear stress or the plane of zero extension. This behavior, while unusual for metals, has been observed in amorphous polymers and metallic glasses. On the other hand, the fine-grained Fe-10Cu materials behaved like coarse-grained iron in some respects, particularly by obeying the Hall-Petch equation with constants reasonably close to those of pure iron and by exhibiting low-temperature mechanical behavior which was very similar to that of steels. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies found highly elongated grains within shear bands, indicating that shear banding occurred by a dislocation-based mechanism, at least at grain sizes above 100 nm. Similarities and differences between the fine-grained Fe-10Cu and metals, polymers, metallic glasses, radiation-damaged metals, and quench-damaged metals are discussed.

Microsample tensile testing of nanocrystalline copper

“…A similar observation was made in nc Cu prepared through the inert gas condensation route, especially when under fatigue conditions [4,18]. Shear localization in nanostructured materials has been discussed for bcc Fe [19][20][21][22], where the shear bands reported are micrometers wide. The small grain size in the nc Cu may have helped to reduce the width of shear bands.…”

Deformation behavior of bimodal nanostructured 5083 Al alloys

“…This observation is consistent with findings in other cryomilled nanostructured Al alloys [11,[14][15][16] and results from other nanostructured or ultrafine-grained materials. [17,18,19] This behavior is observed in various finegrained materials and is attributed primarily to the fine-grained microstructure, as opposed to other metallurgical factors, such as the stacking fault energy.…”

“…A contributing factor may be that an insufficient number of mobile dislocations during plastic deformation leads to shear localization and shear banding. [17,18,19] Work in this area is continuing.…”

In situ compression study of taper-free metallic glass nanopillars

“…2͑e͔͒, which are analogs to the intermittent bursts or slip avalanches observed in crystalline materials with a powerlaw size distribution. 19,20 With decreasing pillar diameter the apparent deformation mode shows a gradual transition from highly inhomogeneous to homogeneous behavior, as indicated by the hatched zone in Fig. 4͑a͒.…”