Strain Gradient Effects on Deformation Strengthening Behavior of Particle Reinforced Metal Matrix Composites

Dislocation models with considering the mismatch of elastic modulus between matrix and reinforcing particles are used to determine the effective strain gradient \ita for particle reinforced metal matrix composites (MMCp) in the present research. Based on Taylor relation and the kinetics of dislocation multiplication, glide and annihilation, a strain gradient dependent constitutive equation is developed. By using this strain gradient-dependent constitutive equation, size-dependent deformation strengthening behavior is characterized. The results demonstrate that the smaller the particle size, the more excellent in the reinforcing effect. Some comparisons with the available experimental results demonstrate that the present approach is satisfactory.

PMMA with Long-Persistent Phosphors and Its Behavior of Luminescence

A new kind of rare earth material with high efficient long-persistent phosphors, such as SrAl2O4: Eu, Dy, has been developed in recent years. The PMMA with long-persistent phosphors is typical one of applications for the phosphors. In this work, we try to probe into the affection of the manufacture process on the PMMA with long-persistent phosphors, to analyze its performance, and its luminescence behavior, especially to study the self-excitation of the PMMA with long-persistent phosphors.

Plastic constitutive behavior of short-fiber/particle reinforced composites

A cylindrical cell model based on continuum theory for plastic constitutive behavior of short-fiber/particle reinforced composites is proposed. The composite is idealized as uniformly distributed periodic arrays of aligned cells, and each cell consists of a cylindrical inclusion surrounded by a plastically deforming matrix. In the analysis, the non-uniform deformation field of the cell is decomposed into the sum of the first order approximate field and the trial additional deformation field. The precise deformation field are determined based on the minimum strain energy principle. Systematic calculation results are presented for the influence of reinforcement volume fraction and shape on the overall mechanical behavior of the composites. The results are in good agreement with the existing finite element analyses and the experimental results. This paper attempts to stimulate the work to get the analytical constitutive relation of short-fiber/particle reinforced composites.

Strain Rate-Dependent Compressive Deformation Behavior of Nd-Based Bulk Metallic Glass

Compressive deformation behavior of the Nd60Fe20Co10Al10 bulk metallic glass was characterized over a wide strain rate range (6.0 x 10(-4) to 1.0x10(3) s(-1)) at room temperature. Fracture stress was found to increase and fracture strain decrease with increasing applied strain rate. Serrated flow and a large number of shear bands were observed at the quasi-static strain rate (6.0 x 10(-4)s(-1)). The results suggest that the appearance of a large number of shear bands is probably associated with flow serration observed during compression; and both shear banding and flow serration are a strain accommodation and stress relaxation process. At dynamic strain rates (1.0 x 10(3) s(-1)), the rate of shear band nucleation is not sufficient to accommodate the applied strain rate and thus causes an early fracture of the test sample. The fracture behavior of the Nd60Fe20Co10Al10 bulk metallic glass is sensitive to strain rate.

Behavior of Multiple Shear Bands in Zr-Based Bulk Metallic Glass

The deformation behavior of Zr41.2Ti13.8Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 bulk metallic glass was studied by in situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) quasi-static uniaxial compression tests at room temperature. Multiple shear bands were observed with a large plasticity. Microscopic examination demonstrates that slipping, branching and intersecting of multiple shear bands are the main mechanisms for enhancing the plasticity of this metallic glass. Additionally, nano/micro-scale voids and cracks at the intersecting sites of shear bands and preferential etching of shear bands were observed as well. These observations demonstrated that the formation of shear bands in bulk metallic glasses is resulted mainly from local free volume coalescence.

Influence of Forced Convection on Columnar Microstructure During Directional Solidification of Al-Ni Alloys

This paper presents a summary of cellular and dendritic morphologies resulting from the upward directional solidification of Al - Ni alloys in a cylindrical crucible. We analysed the coupling of solid-liquid interface morphology with natural and forced convection. The influence of natural convection was first analyzed as a function of growth parameters (solute concentration, growth rate and thermal gradient). In a second step, the influence of axial vibrations on solidification microstructure was investigated by varying vibration parameters (amplitude and frequency). Experimental results were compared to preliminary numerical simulations and a good agreement is found for natural convection. In this study, the critical role of the mushy zone in the interaction between fluid flow and solidification microstructure is pointed out.

Atomistic Simulations of the Mechanical Behavior of Fivefold Twinned Nanowires

Atomistic simulations are used to investigate the mechanical behavior of metal nanowire with fivefold twinned structure. The twinned nanowires were reported in recent experiments [B. Wu et al., Nano Lett. 6, 468 (2006)]. In the present paper, we find that the yield strength of the fivefold twinned Cu nanowire is 1.3 GPa higher than that of the face-centered-cubic (fcc) < 110 > single crystalline Cu nanowire without fivefold twinned structure, and the microstructure-hardened mechanism is primarily due to the twinned boundaries which act as the barriers for the dislocation emission and propagation. However, we also find that the fivefold twinned Cu nanowire has lower ductility than that of fcc < 110 > single crystalline Cu nanowire without the twinned structure, and this is mainly attributed to the scarcity and low mobility of dislocations. In addition, in our simulations the effect of preexisting stacking faults and dislocations on strength of the fivefold twinned nanowires is investigated.

Undercooling and Rapid Solidification of Nb-Si Eutectic Alloys Studied by Long Drop Tube

Niobium-silicide alloys have great potential for high temperature turbine applications. The two-phase Nb/Nb5Si3 in situ composites exhibit a good balance in mechanical properties. Using the 52 in drop tube, the effect of undercooling and rapid solidification on the solidification process and micro-structural characterization of Nb-Si eutectic alloy was studied. The microstructures of the Nb-Si composites were investigated by optics microscope (OM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with X-ray energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). Up to 480 K, deep undercooling of the Nb-Si eutectic samples was successfully obtained, which corresponds to 25% of the liquidus temperature. Contrasting to the conventional microstructure usually found in the Nb-Si eutectic alloy, the microstructure of the undercooled sample is divided into the fine and coarse regions. The most commonly observed microstructure is Nb+Nb5Si3, and the Nb3Si phase is not be found. The change of coarseness of microstructure is due to different cooling rates during and after recalescence. The large undercooling is sufficient to completely bypass the high temperature phase field.

Deformation behavior and microstructure effect in 2124Al/SiCp composite

Dynamic compression tests were performed by means of a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB). Test materials were 2124Al alloys reinforced with 17% volume fraction of 3, 13 and 37 μm SiC particles, respectively. Under strain rate ε = 2100 l/s, SiC particles have a strong effect on σ_0.2 of the composites and the σ_0.2 increases with different SiC particle size in the following order: 2124Al-alloy → 124Al/SiC_p (37 μm) → 2124Al/SiC_p (13 μm) → 2124Al/SiC_p (3 μm), and the strain hardening of the composites depends mainly on the strain hardening of matrix, 2124A1 alloy. The results of dimensional analysis present that the flow stress of these composites not only depends on the property of reinforcement and matrix but also relates to the microstructure scale, matrix grain size, reinforcement size, the distance between reinforcements and dislocations in matrix. The normalized flow stress here is a function of inverse power of the edge-edge particle spacing, dislocation density and matrix grain size. Close-up observation shows that, in the composite containing SiC particles (3 μm), localized deformation formed readily comparing with other materials under the same loading condition. Microscopic observations indicate that different plastic flow patterns occur within the matrix due to the presence of hard particles with different sizes.

Electron Beam Surface Treatment. Part II: Microstructure Evolution of Stainless Steel and Aluminum Alloy During Electron Beam Rapid Solidification

Surface rapid solidification microstructures of AISI 321 austenitic stainless steel and 2024 aluminum alloy have been investigated by electron beam remelting process and optical microscopy observation. It is indicated that the morphologies of the melted layer of both stainless steel and aluminum alloy change dramatically compared to the original materials. Also, the microstructures were greatly refined after the electron beam irradiation.

Influence of Indenter Tip Roundness on Hardness Behavior in Nanoindentation

In this paper. the effect of indenter tip roundness on hardness behavior for two typical elastic perfectly plastic materials is studied by means of finite element simulation. A rigid conical indenter of semi apex angle 70.3 degrees fitted smoothly with a spherical tip is employed. It is shown that as the indentation depth increases hardness first rises from zero, reaches a maximum and then decreases slowly approaching asymptotically the limiting value equal to that due to a conical indenter of ideally sharp tip. The range within which hardness varies appreciably is comparable to the radius of the indenter tip. The difference between the maximum value and the limiting value depends on the yield stress over the Young's modulus ratio. The smaller this ratio the greater the difference is. Numerical simulation also provides an opportunity for checking the accuracy and limitations of the widely used Oliver-Pharr method.

A time domain computation method for dynamic behavior of mooring system

A quasi-steady time domain method is developed for the prediction of dynamic behavior of a mooring system under the environmental disturbances, such as regular or irregular waves, winds and currents. The mooring forces are obtained in a static sense at each instant. The dynamic feature of the mooring cables can be obtained by incorporating the extended 3-D lumped-mass method with the known ship motion history. Some nonlinear effects, such as the influence of the instantaneous change of the wetted hull surface on the hydrostatic restoring forces and Froude-Krylov forces, are included. The computational results show a satisfactory agreement with the experimental ones.

Influence of stochastic mesoscopic structure on macroscopic mechanical behavior of brittle material

A newly developed numerical code, MFPA(2D) (Material Failure Process Analysis), is applied to study the influence of stochastic mesoscopic structure on macroscopic mechanical behavior of rock-like materials. A set of uniaxial compression tests has been numerically studied with numerical specimens containing pre-existing crack-like flaw. The numerical results reveal the influence of random mesoscopic structure on failure process of brittle material, which indicates that the variation of failure mode is strongly sensitive to the local disorder feature of the specimen. And the patterns of the crack evolution in the specimens are very different from each other due to the random mesoscopic structure in material. The results give a good explanation for various kinds of fracture modes and peak strength variation observed in laboratory studies with specimens made from the same rock block being statistically homogenous in macro scale. In addition, the evolution of crack is more complicated in heterogeneous cases than in homogeneous cases.

Simulations of Mechanical Behavior of Polycrystalline Copper with Nano-Twins

Mechanical behavior and microstructure evolution of polycrystalline copper with nano-twins were investigated in the present work by finite element simulations. The fracture of grain boundaries are described by a cohesive interface constitutive model based on the strain gradient plasticity theory. A systematic study of the strength and ductility for different grain sizes and twin lamellae distributions is performed. The results show that the material strength and ductility strongly depend on the grain size and the distribution of twin lamellae microstructures in the polycrystalline copper.

Novel Mechanical Behavior Of Zno Nanorods

A novel stress-strain relation with two stages of linear elastic deformation is observed in [0 0 0 1]-oriented ZnO nanorods under uniaxial tensile loading. This phenomenon results from a phase transformation from wurtzite (WZ, P6(3)mc space group) to a body-centered tetragonal structure with four-atom rings (denoted as BCT-4) belonging to the P4(2)/mnm space group. The analysis here focuses on the effects of nanorod size and temperature on the phase transformation and the associated mechanical behavior. It is found that as size is increased from 19.5 to 45.5 angstrom, the critical stress for nucleation of the transformation decreases by 25% from 21.90 to 16.50 GPa and the elastic moduli of the WZ- and BCT-4-structured nanorods decrease by 24% (from 299.49 to 227.51 GPa) and 38% (from 269.29 to 166.86 GPa), respectively. A significant temperature effect is also observed, with the critical stress for transformation initiation decreasing 87.8% from 17.89 to 2.19 GPa as temperature increases from 300 to 1500 K. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.