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A multi-scale model of dislocation plasticity in α-Fe: Incorporating temperature, strain rate and non-Schmid effects

International Journal of Plasticity

Lim, Hojun L.; Hale, L.M.; Zimmerman, Jonathan A.; Battaile, Corbett C.; Weinberger, Christopher R.

Abstract In this work, we develop an atomistically informed crystal plasticity finite element (CP-FE) model for body-centered-cubic (BCC) α-Fe that incorporates non-Schmid stress dependent slip with temperature and strain rate effects. Based on recent insights obtained from atomistic simulations, we propose a new constitutive model that combines a generalized non-Schmid yield law with aspects from a line tension (LT) model for describing activation enthalpy required for the motion of dislocation kinks. Atomistic calculations are conducted to quantify the non-Schmid effects while both experimental data and atomistic simulations are used to assess the temperature and strain rate effects. The parameterized constitutive equation is implemented into a BCC CP-FE model to simulate plastic deformation of single and polycrystalline Fe which is compared with experimental data from the literature. This direct comparison demonstrates that the atomistically informed model accurately captures the effects of crystal orientation, temperature and strain rate on the flow behavior of siangle crystal Fe. Furthermore, our proposed CP-FE model exhibits temperature and strain rate dependent flow and yield surfaces in polycrystalline Fe that deviate from conventional CP-FE models based on Schmid's law.

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An experimental statistical analysis of stress projection factors in BCC tantalum

Materials Science and Engineering. A, Structural Materials: Properties, Microstructure and Processing

Carroll, Jay D.; Clark, Blythe C.; Buchheit, Thomas E.; Boyce, Brad B.; Weinberger, Christopher R.

Crystallographic slip planes in body centered cubic (BCC) metals are not fully understood. In polycrystals, there are additional confounding effects from grain interactions. This paper describes an experimental investigation into the effects of grain orientation and neighbors on elastic–plastic strain accumulation. In situ strain fields were obtained by performing digital image correlation (DIC) on images from a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and from optical microscopy. These strain fields were statistically compared to the grain structure measured by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). Spearman rank correlations were performed between effective strain and six microstructural factors including four Schmid factors associated with the <111> slip direction, grain size, and Taylor factor. Modest correlations (~10%) were found for a polycrystal tension specimen. The influence of grain neighbors was first investigated by re-correlating the polycrystal data using clusters of similarly-oriented grains identified by low grain boundary misorientation angles. Second, the experiment was repeated on a tantalum oligocrystal, with through-thickness grains. Much larger correlation coefficients were found in this multicrystal due to the dearth of grain neighbors and subsurface microstructure. Finally, a slip trace analysis indicated (in agreement with statistical correlations) that macroscopic slip often occurs on {110}<111> slip systems and sometimes by pencil glide on maximum resolved shear stress planes (MRSSP). These results suggest that Schmid factors are suitable for room temperature, quasistatic, tensile deformation in tantalum as long as grain neighbor effects are accounted for.

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Modeling tin whisker growth

Weinberger, Christopher R.

Tin, lead, and lead-tin solders are the most commonly used solders due to their low melting temperatures. However, due to the toxicity problems, lead must now be removed from solder materials. This has lead to the re-emergence of the issue of tin whisker growth. Tin whiskers are a microelectronic packaging issue because they can lead to shorts if they grow to sufficient length. However, the cause of tin whisker growth is still not well understood and there is lack of robust methods to determine when and if whiskering will be a problem. This report summarizes some of the leading theories on whisker growth and attempts to provide some ideas towards establishing the role microstructure plays in whisker growth.

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Peierls potential of screw dislocations in bcc transition metals: Predictions from density functional theory

Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics

Weinberger, Christopher R.; Tucker, Garritt T.; Foiles, Stephen M.

It is well known that screw dislocation motion dominates the plastic deformation in body-centered-cubic metals at low temperatures. The nature of the nonplanar structure of screw dislocations gives rise to high lattice friction, which results in strong temperature and strain rate dependence of plastic flow. Thus the nature of the Peierls potential, which is responsible for the high lattice resistance, is an important physical property of the material. However, current empirical potentials give a complicated picture of the Peierls potential. Here, we investigate the nature of the Peierls potential using density functional theory in the bcc transition metals. The results show that the shape of the Peierls potential is sinusoidal for every material investigated. Furthermore, we show that the magnitude of the potential scales strongly with the energy per unit length of the screw dislocation in the material.

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The hardness and strength of metal tribofilms: An apparent contradiction between nanoindentation and pillar compression

Acta Materialia

Battaile, Corbett C.; Boyce, Brad L.; Weinberger, Christopher R.; Prasad, Somuri V.; Michael, Joseph R.; Clark, Blythe C.

After sliding contact of a hard spherical counterface on a metal surface, the resulting wear scar possesses a complex microstructure consisting of dislocations, dislocation cells, ultrafine or nanocrystalline grains, and material that has undergone dynamic recovery. There remains a controversy as to the mechanical properties of the tribolayer formed in this wear scar. To investigate the properties of this thin layer of damaged material in single crystal nickel, we employed two complementary techniques: pillar compression and nanoindentation. In both techniques, the tests were tailored to characterize the near surface properties associated with the top 500 nm of material, where the wear-induced damage was most extensive. Pillar compression indicated that the worn material was substantially softer than neighboring unworn base metal. However, nanoindentation showed that the wear track was substantially harder than the base metal. These apparently contradictory results are explained on the basis of source limited deformation. The worn pillars are softer than unworn pillars due to a pre-straining effect: undefected pillars are nearly free of dislocations, whereas worn pillars have pre-existing dislocations built in. Nanoindentation in worn material behaves harder than unworn single crystal nickel due to source length reduction from the fine-grained wear structure. © 2011 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The structure and energetics of, and the plasticity caused by, Eshelby dislocations

International Journal of Plasticity

Weinberger, Christopher R.

The structure of coaxial, or Eshelby, dislocations are computed using isotropic elasticity for arrays of up to 500 dislocations. The energies of these arrays are determined in order to predict the lowest energy configuration and multiple meta-stable configurations are often found. The energy from these elasticity predictions shows good agreement with molecular statics simulations of aluminum. From these simulations, the torque-twist curves are predicted and compared with molecular dynamics simulations.© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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A micromechanical framework for simulating the deformation response of BCC metals

Battaile, Corbett C.; Weinberger, Christopher R.

Recently, molecular dynamics simulations (e.g. Groger et al. Acta Mat. vol.56) have uncovered new insights into dislocation motion associated with plastic deformation of BCC metals. Those results indicate that stress necessary for glide along 110[111] crystallographic systems plus additional shear stresses along non-glide directions may accurately characterize plastic flow in BCC crystals. Further, they are readily adaptable to micromechanical formulations used in crystal plasticity models. This presentation will discuss an adaptation into a classical mechanics framework for use in a large scale rate-dependent crystal plasticity model. The effects of incorporating the non-glide influences on an otherwise associative flow model are profound. Comparisons will be presented that show the effect of the non-glide stress components on tension-compression yield stress asymmetry and the evolution of texture in BCC crystals.

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63 Results
63 Results