Mechanism of Enhanced Ductility in Mg Alloys

Mechanism of Enhanced Ductility in Mg Alloys

  • Date: Feb 21, 2018
  • Time: 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Prof. Bill Curtin
  • Institute of Mechanical Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Location: Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung GmbH
  • Room: Seminar Room 1
  • Host: on invitation of Prof. Jörg Neugebauer
  • Contact: stein@mpie.de
Pure Mg has low ductility due to strong plastic anisotropy and due to a transition of <c+a> pyramidaldislocations to a sessile basal-oriented structure [1]. Alloying generally improves ductility; for instance, Mg-3wt.%RE (RE=Y, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er) alloys show relatively high ductility [2], and typically larger than mostcommercial Mg-Al-Zn alloys at similar grain sizes. Possible concepts for ductility in alloys include thereduction of plastic anisotropy due to solute strengthening of basal slip, the nucleation of <c+a> from basal I1stacking faults, the prevention of the detrimental <c+a> transformation to sessile structures, and the weakeningof strong basal texture by some solute/particle mechanisms. Here, we introduce a new mechanism ofpyramidal cross-slip from the lower-energy Pyr. II plane to the higher energy Pyr. I plane as the key toductility in Mg and alloys [3]. Certain alloying elements reduce the energy difference between Pyr. I and IIscrew dislocations, accelerating cross-slip that then leads to rapid dislocation multiplication and alleviates theeffects of the undesirable pyramidal-to-basal dissocation. A theory for the cross-slip energy barrier ispresented, and first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations, following methods in [4], are usedto compute the necessary pyramidal stacking fault energies as a function of solute type for many solutes in thedilute concentration limit. Predictions of the theory then demonstrate why Rare Earth solutes are highlyeffective at very low concentrations, and generally capture the trends in ductility and texture evolution acrossthe full range of Mg alloys studied to date. The new mechanism then points in directions for achievingenhanced ductility across a range of non-RE alloys.[1] Z. Wu, W.A. Curtin, Nature 526 (2015) 62-67[2] S. Sandlobes, et al., Acta Materialia 59 (2011) 429-439; Acta Materialia 70 (2014) 92–104[3] Z. Wu, R. Ahmad, B. Yin, S. Sandlobes, and W. A. Curtin, Science 359, 447-452 (2018).[4] B. Yin, Z. Wu, and W. A. Curtin, Acta Materialia 136 (2017) 249-261.
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