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The introduction of the talk provides an overview on materials research in IEK-2 (Institute for Energy and Climate Research, Materials Characterization) in Forschungszentrum Jülich. Selected examples of metallic and ceramic high performance materials for applications in energy conversion and storage systems are introduced, e.g. new materials for membranes, coatings or turbine blades. The main part of the presentation focuses on recent developments of novel high temperature Mo‑Si‑B materials, which are potential candidates to substitute Ni-base superalloys in power plants or aircraft turbines. Such alloys include a Mo solid solution phase as well as silicides, which are creep and oxidation resistant, but very brittle phases. The challenge is to balance the properties at ambient temperatures and high temperatures to tailor these multi-phase alloys for the use in a wide temperature range up to 1200°C and various mechanical loads. Concepts of material design, i.e. alloying strategy and process-microstructure-properties relationships are presented in terms of improved mechanical properties and oxidation resistance. The effect of additional elements on the mechanical properties, like fracture toughness, ductile-brittle-transition and creep resistance will be described. The presentation also includes the formation of isotropic and anisotropic microstructures by powder metallurgy, directional solidification and additive manufacturing. The latter process is quite challenging due to ultra-high melting temperatures of >2000°C and corresponding difficulties during melting and rapid cooling. [more]

Deformation in metallic glasses occurs by initiation and propagation of multiple thin shear bands. This mode is rather difficult to analyse since generally, a single band soon propagates to a large extent in the specimen leading to a catastrophic failure. Exceptions are for example in creep tests under very low stress and moderate temperature or in confined deformation tests. We used instrumented nano-indentations to perform series of independent experiments at room temperature on a Mg65Cu12.5Ni12.5(Ce75La25)10 metallic glass. Loading part of the curves shows serrations which size and duration were measured using an automatic procedure. To make analyses consistent, data were considered only in the domain with similar strain rates, in the range of 1 to 0.3 s-1. Times between successive serrations follow a normal distribution characterizing a random occurrence of deformation burst in the glass. It was then conjectured, first that serration occurs through activation of appropriate zone in the glass that should naturally scale with a multiple of an elementary domain size characterizing the deformation mechanism. Second, as activated zones leading to serration are very few in the glass, the model should be described by the Poisson statistics. Data analyses reveals that serration size are well fitted by a Poisson distribution. The model predict an elementary size which scale with that of the activation volume of 3 atoms, measured from creep test at constant load in the same series of experiments. Eventually, energy dissipated during serration is analyzed as to define shear bands dynamics characteristics.Depending on time, I shall present the use of nano-indention for investigating dynamics of nanoporous metallic materials deformation. N. Thurieau, L. Perriere, M. Laurent-Brocq, Y. Champion, J. Appl. Phys., 118 (2015) 204302. [more]

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. [more]

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