Deformation mechanisms and defect structures in Heusler intermetallic MnCu 2 Al
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Xu, Shuozhi.
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Voids of nanoscale dimensions in irradiated metals can act as obstacles to dislocation motion and cause strengthening. In this work, nanovoid strengthening and the influences of void size, void spacing and material properties, such as stacking fault energies, on dislocation bypass mechanisms are investigated using Phase Field Dislocation Dynamics, a three-dimensional mesoscale model that predicts the minimum energy pathway taken by discrete dislocations. A broad range of face centered cubic metals (copper, nickel, silver, rhodium, and platinum) and nanovoid sizes and spacings are treated, altogether spanning void size–to–dislocation stacking fault width ratios from less than unity to ten. Material γ-surfaces, calculated from ab initio methods, are input directly into the formulation. The analysis reveals that the critical bypass stress scales linearly with the linear void fraction, effective isotropic shear modulus, and ratio of the intrinsic to unstable stacking fault energies. With only a few exceptions, the critical stress is controlled by the stress required for the leading partial to impinge the voids (to move within range of the attractive image stress field of the void). When the void diameter is nearly an order of magnitude greater than the stacking fault width, the mechanism determining critical strength shifts to the stress for the dislocation to breakaway after partially cutting the void. Furthermore, this situation corresponds to that treated by line tension models and is realized here for Pt, with a sub-nanometer stacking fault width.
Refractory multi-principal element alloys (RMPEAs) are promising materials for high-temperature structural applications. Here, we investigate the role of short-range ordering (SRO) on dislocation glide in the MoNbTi and TaNbTi RMPEAs using a multi-scale modeling approach. Monte carlo/molecular dynamics simulations with a moment tensor potential show that MoNbTi exhibits a much greater degree of SRO than TaNbTi and the local composition has a direct effect on the unstable stacking fault energies (USFEs). From mesoscale phase-field dislocation dynamics simulations, we find that increasing SRO leads to higher mean USFEs and stress required for dislocation glide. The gliding dislocations experience significant hardening due to pinning and depinning caused by random compositional fluctuations, with higher SRO decreasing the degree of USFE dispersion and hence, amount of hardening. Finally, we show how the morphology of an expanding dislocation loop is affected by the applied stress.
Cu/Nb nanocomposites containing sharp, two-dimensional (2D) interfaces have outstanding strength but limited deformability. In contrast, Cu/Nb with three dimensional (3D) biphase interfaces exhibiting crystallographic, topological, and chemical variations in all spatial dimensions overcomes this limitation by simultaneously enhancing material strength and deformability. Here, while structural characterization of 3D interfaces has been performed to understand their mechanical behavior, three dimensional chemical characterization of such interfaces is lacking. In this work we quantify the local chemistry of 3D interfaces in Cu/Nb nanocomposites using atom probe tomography (APT). Our analysis demonstrates chemical heterogeneities along all spatial dimensions in 3D interfaces, establishes the length scale of such features, and quantifies the morphology of 3D interfaces. 3D interface heterogeneities form by surface diffusion during physical vapor deposition (PVD), suggesting that deposition parameters can be used to control interface structure and provide unique ways to explore processing-structure-property relationships in interface-dominated nanocomposites.
Crystalline materials can be strengthened by introducing dissimilar phases that impede dislocation glide. At the same time, the changes in microstructure and chemistry usually make the materials less ductile. One way to circumvent the strength–ductility dilemma is to take advantage of heterogeneous nanophases which simultaneously serve as dislocation barriers and sources. Owing to their superior mechanical properties, heterogeneous nanostructured materials (HNMs) have attracted a lot of attention worldwide. Nevertheless, it has been difficult to characterize dislocation dynamics in HNMs using classical continuum models, mainly due to the challenges in describing the elastic and plastic heterogeneity among the phases. Here, in this work, we advance a phase-field dislocation dynamics (PFDD) model to treat multi-phase materials, consisting of phases differing in composition, structural order, and size in the same system. We then apply the advanced PFDD model to exploring two important but divergent materials design problems in HNMs: dislocation/obstacle interactions and dislocation/interface interactions. Results show that the interactions between a dislocation and distribution of obstacles varying in structure and composition cannot be understood by simply interpolating from their individual interactions with a dislocation. It is also found that materials containing interfaces with nanoscale thicknesses and compositional gradients have a much higher dislocation bypass stress than those with sharp interfaces, providing an explanation for the simultaneous high strength and toughness of thick interface-containing nanolaminates as observed in recent experiments.