Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Mechanical Metallurgy
George E Dieter
McGraw-Hill Book Company, London (1988)
Review
Elastic deformation
Particle coarsening
Note: Plastic deformation in amorphous materials occur by other mechanisms including flow (~viscous fluid) and shear
banding
High-temperature behaviour of materials
Designing materials for high temperature applications is one of the most challenging tasks
for a material scientist.
Various thermodynamic and kinetic factors tend to deteriorate the desirable microstructure.
This is because kinetics of underlying processes (like diffusion) are an exponential function
of temperature.
Hence, a small increase in temperature can prove to be catastrophic.
Strength decreases at high temperature and material damage (e.g. void formation) tends to
accumulate.
Phenomena like creep and accelerated oxidation kick-in.
Cycling between high and low temperature will cause thermal fatigue.
High temperature effects (many of the effects described below are coupled)
Increased vacancy concentration at high temperatures more vacancies are
thermodynamically stabilized (this will further increase the diffusion rate).
Thermal expansion material will expand and in multiphase materials/hybrids thermal
stresses will develop due to differential thermal expansion of the components.
High diffusion rate diffusion controlled processes become important.
Phase transformations can occur this not only can give rise to undesirable
microstructure, but lead to generation of internal stresses.
Precipitates may dissolve.
Grain related:
Grain boundary weakening may lead to grain boundary sliding and wedge cracking.
Grain boundary migration
Recrystallization / grain growth decrease in strength.
Dislocation related these factors will lead to decrease in strength
Climb
New slip systems can become active
Change of slip system
Decrease in dislocation density.
Overaging of precipitates and precipitate coarsening decrease in strength.
The material may creep (time dependent elongation at constant load/stress).
Enhanced oxidation and intergranular penetration of oxygen.
Etc.
Creep Creep is phenomenological term, which is responsible for plastic deformation.
In some sense creep and superplasticity are related phenomena: in creep we can think of
damage accumulation leading to failure of sample; while in superplasticity extended plastic
deformation may be achieved (i.e. damage accumulation leading to failure is delayed).
Creep is permanent deformation (plastic deformation) of a material under constant load (or
constant stress) as a function of time. (Usually at high temperatures lead creeps at RT).
Normally, increased plastic deformation takes place with increasing load (or stress)
In creep plastic strain increases at constant load (or stress)
Usually appreciable only at T > 0.4 Tm High temperature phenomenon.
Mechanisms of creep in crystalline materials is different from that in amorphous materials.
Amorphous materials can creep by flow.
At temperatures where creep is appreciable various other material processes may also
active (e.g. recrystallization, precipitate coarsening, oxidation etc.- as considered before).
Creep experiments are done either at constant load or constant stress and can be classified
based on Phenomenology or underlying Mechanism.
Phenomenology
Constant load (easier)
Creep can Harper-Dorn creep
Power Law creep Creep tests can
be classified
be carried out at
based on Constant stress
Mechanism
Constant load creep curve
In a typical creep test the load and temperature are kept constant and the elongation is
monitored with time. The strain (typically engineering strain) computed from the elongation
is plotted as function of time. The loads employed are typically below the elastic limit.
Three stages may be observed in such a plot: (i) decreasing rate with time, (ii)
approximately constant rate, (iii) increasing rate with time. These stages have to be
understood keeping in view underlying mechanisms (& necking in stage-III).
The instantaneous strain seen (0) is the elastic strain, which develops on the application of the load.
A technical term
III Stage-II
Stage of minimum creep rate ~ constant.
Work hardening is balanced by recovery.
The distinguishability of the three Stage-III
stages strongly depends on T and Absent (/delayed very much) in constant
stress tests (shown later).
0 Initial instantaneous strain
0 Necking of specimen starts in this stage.
t Specimen failure processes set in.
Constant Stress creep curve
In stage-III (due to necking) the engineering stress is no longer a correct measure of the
state of stress. To keep the stress constant, the instantaneous area has to be taken into
account.
If this is done, then the increasing strain rate part is not observed. Note: if load is kept
constant then in stage-III the stress is actually increasing (for the material it is stress which
matters and not load).
I II
Strain ()
III
t
Effect of stress on the creep curve (constant load)
On increasing the load at which the experiment is conducted: (i) the instantaneous strain
(elastic) increases, (ii) for a given time (say t1) the strain is more, (iii) the time to failure (tf)
decreases (i.e. as expected, specimens fail earlier).
Fracture
Strain ()
Elastic strains
Increasing stress
0 increases
0''
0 0' 0''
0'
0 t 'f' t t 'f t 0f
t1
Effect of temperature
On increasing the temperature at which the experiment is conducted:
(i) the instantaneous strain (elastic = 0) increases (slightly),
(ii) for a given time (say t1) the strain is more, (iii) the time to failure (tf) decreases.
The instantaneous strain 0 increases with increasing T because of the slight decrease in the
Youngs modulus (E) of the material.
Strain ()
E as T Increasing T
As decrease in E
with temperature
0 increases
is usually small
the 0 increase is
also small
0
0 '
0 ''
0
t1 t 'f' t t 'f t 0f
Creep Mechanisms of crystalline materials
Stress and temperature are the two important variables, which not only affect the creep rate,
but also the mechanism operative. Three kinds of mechanisms are operative in creep:
1 dislocation related,
2 diffusional,
3 grain boundary sliding.
These and their sub-classes are shown in the next page.
At high temperatures the grain boundary becomes weaker than the grain interior and two
grains can slide past one another due to shear stress. The temperature at which the grain is
as strong as the grain boundary is called the equicohesive temperature.
A combination of these mechanisms could also be responsible for the creep strain.
Depending on the stress and temperature other mechanisms of plastic deformation or
microstructural changes may occur concurrently with creep. These include plastic
deformation by slip and dynamic recrystallization.
Deformation mechanism maps can be drawn with homologous temperature (T/Tm) and
normalized shear stress (/G) as the axis (other combination of variables may also be chosen
for these plots: T/Tm vs shear strain rate, normalized shear stress vs shear strain rate, etc.).
Typically these maps overlay descriptors, which are based both on phenomenology and
mechanism.
Creep Mechanisms of crystalline materials
Cross-slip
Glide
Coble creep
Grain boundary diffusion controlled
Cross-slip
This kind of creep is observed at relatively low temperatures. Herein screw dislocations
cross-slip by thermal activation and give rise to plastic strain as a function of time.
Dislocation climb
Edge dislocations piled up against an obstacle can climb to another slip plane and cause
plastic deformation. In response to stress this gives rise to strain as a function of time. It is
to be noted that at low temperatures these dislocations (being pinned) are sessile and
become glissile only at high temperatures.
Rate controlling step is the diffusion of vacancies.
Diffusional creep Nabarro-Herring creep high T lattice diffusion
Grains
The dominant
mechanism is shown in
the diagram Dynamic recrystallization
gives rise to strain-free
grains.
From Deformation Mechanism Maps: The plasticity and creep of Metals and Ceramics by H.J. Frost and M.F.Ashby, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1982.
From Deformation Mechanism Maps: The plasticity and creep of Metals and Ceramics by H.J. Frost and M.F.Ashby, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1982.
Creep Resistant Materials
The is a growing need for materials to operate at high temperatures (and in some
applications for long times). For example, higher operating temperatures gives better
efficiency for a heat engine. Hence, there is a need to design materials which can withstand
high temperatures.
It is to be noted that material should also be good in other properties for high temperature
applications (like it should possess good oxidation resistance). Factors like cost, ease of
fabrication, density, etc. play an important role in determining the final choice of a material.
Some of the material design strategies, which work at low temperature are not useful at
high temperatures (e.g. work hardening, precipitation hardening with precipitates which
coarsen, grain size reduction, etc.).
Some strategies which work are: (i) having grain boundaries aligned along the primary
loading axis, (ii) produce single crystal components (like turbine blades), (iii) use
precipitates with low interfacial energy for strengthen (which will not coarsen easily), (iv)
use dispersoids for strengthening.
[1] P.G. Sanders, M. Rittner, E. Kiedaisch, J.R. Weertman, H.Kung, Y.C. Lu, Nanostruct. Mater. 9 (1997) 433.
[2] D.L. Wang, Q.P. Kong, J.P. Shui, Scr. Metall. Mater. 31 (1994) 47.
In some cases the creep rate increased with a decrease in grain size in the nanoscale
regime of grain sizes (e.g. in Ni-P nanocrystalline material the creep rate of ~30 nm grain
sized material was higher than that of 250 nm material [2]).
In cases where high creep rate expected for nanocrystalline materials (e.g. Pd, Cu) was not
observed, the reason attributed are:
(i) presence of low angle grain boundaries and twin boundaries (which are not prone to
sliding and have low diffusivity for vacancies),
(ii) reduced dislocation activity in nanocrystalline samples.
Creep of nc-Ni at RT (GS: 6, 20, 40 nm) [1]:
Smaller grain size (6nm) showed faster creep rate.
Behaviour consistent with Grain boundary sliding controlled by grain boundary
diffusion mechanism.
At high stresses and larger GS (20, 40 nm), dislocation creep was observed.
[1] N. Wang, Z. Wang, K.T. Aust, U. Erb, Mater. Sci. Eng., A 237 (1997) 150.
Superplasticity
Superplasticity
The phenomenon of extensive plastic deformation without necking is termed as structural
superplasticity. Superplastic deformation in tension can be >300% (up to even 2000%).
Typically superplastic deformation occurs when:
(i) T > 0.5Tm
(ii) grain size is < 10 m
(iii) grains are equiaxed (which usually remain so after deformation)
(iv) grain boundaries are glissile (with a large fraction of high angle grain boundaries).
Presence of a second phase (of similar strength to the matrix- reduces cavitation during
deformation), which can inhibit grain growth at elevated temperatures helps (e.g. Al-
33%Cu, Zn-22% Al)).
Many superplastic alloys have compositions are close to eutectic or eutectoid points.
Superplastic flow is diffusion controlled (can be grain boundary or lattice diffusion
controlled).
A plot of stress versus strain rate is often sigmoidal and shows three regions:
(i) Region-I- low stress, low strain rate regime ( <105 /s) m (0.2,0.33)
C ,T
m
Superplasticity in Nanomaterials
In most cases the superplasticity has not fulfilled the initial expectations.
In many cases superplasticity is only observed in nanocrystalline samples, where it is already
observed in their microcrystalline counterparts.
Superplasticity was observed in nanocrystalline Ni (20 nm grain size) at 0.36Tm (more than
450C lower than that for the bulk material) [1].
Nanocrystalline Ni3Al (grain size 50 nm) also became superplastic about 450C below its
microcrystalline counterparts.
Ni3Al had a ductility of 350% at 650C (strain rate of 103 /s).
1420-Al alloy showed superplasticity at a high strain rate of 101 /s. High amount work
hardening and higher flow stress for superplastic deformation as compared to micron grain
sized material is observed in these cases.
Superplasticity was observed in ~40 nm grain size Zn-Al alloy at 373 K, tested at a strain
rate of 104 /s [2]. Microcrystalline samples showed no superplasticity!
[1] R.S. Mishra, R.Z. Valiev, S.X. McFadden, A.K. Mukherjee, Mater. Sci. Eng., A 252 (1998) 174.