Mechanical properties of nanocrystalline metals, intermetalics and multiphase materials determined by tension, compression and disk-bend techniques

The mechanical behavior of nanocrystalline metallic, intermetallic, and multiphase materials was investigated using tension, compression, and disk-bend techniques. Nanocrystalline NiAl, Al-Al{sub 3}Zr, and Cu were synthesized by gas condensation and either resistive or electron beam heating followed by high temperature vacuum compaction. Disk- bend tests of nanocrystalline NiAl show evidence of improved ductility at room temperature in this normally extremely brittle material. In contrast, tension tests of multiphase nanocrystalline Al- Al{sub 3}Zr samples show significant increases in strength by substantial reductions in ductility with decreasing grain size. Compression tests of nanocrystalline copper result in substantially higher yield stress and total elongation values than those measured in tensile tests. Implications for operative deformation mechanisms in these materials are discussed

Modeling the post-yield flow behavior after neutron and electron irradiation of steels and iron-base alloys.

Irradiation hardening is an issue of practical importance as it relates to the remanent life and the nature of failure of reactor components exposed to displacement-producing radiation. For example, irradiation-induced yield strength increases in pressure vessel steels are directly related to increases in the ductile-to-brittle-transition-temperature of these materials. Other issues associated with hardening, such as reductions in ductility, toughness and fatigue life of structural steels are also of concern. Understanding these phenomena requires studies of fundamental microstructural mechanisms of hardening. Because of the limited supply of neutron-irradiated surveillance material, difficulties posed by the radioactivity of neutron-exposed samples and the uncertainty of irradiation conditions in this case, fundamental studies are often conducted using well-controlled experiments involving irradiation by electrons instead of neutrons. Also, in such studies, simple model alloys are used in place of steels to focus on the influence of specific alloy constituents. It is, therefore, important to understand the relationship between the results of this kind of experiment and the effects of in-reactor neutron exposure in order to use them to make predictions of significance to reactor component life. In this paper, we analyze the tensile behavior of pressure vessel steels (A212B and A350) irradiated by neutrons and electrons. The results show that the post-yield true stress/true strain behavior can provide fingerprints of the different hardening effects that result from irradiation by the two particles, which also reflect the influence of alloy content. Microstructurally-based models for irradiation-induced yield strength increases, combined with a model for strain hardening, are used to make predictions of the different effects of irradiation by the two particles on the entire flow curve that agree well with data

Microstructural evolution in a ferritic-martensitic stainless steel and its relation to high-temperature deformation and rupture models

The ferritic-martensitic stainless steel HT-9 exhibits an anomalously high creep strength in comparison to its high-temperature flow strength from tensile tests performed at moderate rates. A constitutive relation describing its high-temperature tensile behavior over a wide range of conditions has been developed. When applied to creep conditions the model predicts deformation rates orders of magnitude higher than observed. To account for the observed creep strength, a fine distribution of precipitates is postulated to evolve over time during creep. The precipitate density is calculated at each temperature and stress to give the observed creep rate. The apparent precipitation kinetics thereby extracted from this analysis is used in a model for the rupture-time kinetics that compares favorably with observation. Properly austenitized and tempered material was aged over times comparable to creep conditions, and in a way consistent with the precipitation kinetics from the model. Microstructural observations support the postulates and results of the model system. 16 refs., 10 figs

Deformation behavior in reactor pressure vessel steels as a clue to understanding irradiation hardening.

In this paper, we examine the post-yield true stress vs true strain behavior of irradiated pressure vessel steels and iron-based alloys to reveal differences in strain-hardening behavior associated with different irradiating particles (neutrons and electrons) and different alloy chernky. It is important to understand the effects on mechanical properties caused by displacement producing radiation of nuclear reactor pressure steels. Critical embrittling effects, e.g. increases in the ductile-to-brittle-transition-temperature, are associated with irradiation-induced increases in yield strength. In addition, fatigue-life and loading-rate effects on fracture can be related to the post-irradiation strain-hardening behavior of the steels. All of these properties affect the expected service life of nuclear reactor pressure vessels. We address the characteristics of two general strengthening effects that we believe are relevant to the differing defect cluster characters produced by neutrons and electrons in four different alloys: two pressure vessel steels, A212B and A350, and two binary alloys, Fe-0.28 wt%Cu and Fe-0.74 wt%Ni. Our results show that there are differences in the post-irradiation mechanical behavior for the two kinds of irradiation and that the differences are related both to differences in damage produced and alloy chemistry. We find that while electron and neutron irradiations (at T {le} 60 C) of pressure vessel steels and binary iron-based model alloys produce similar increases in yield strength for the same dose level, they do not result in the same post-yield hardening behavior. For neutron irradiation, the true stress flow curves of the irradiated material can be made to superimpose on that of the unirradiated material, when the former are shifted appropriately along the strain axis. This behavior suggests that neutron irradiation hardening has the same effect as strain hardening for all of the materials analyzed. For electron irradiated steels, the post-yield hardening rate is clearly greater than that of the unirradiated material, and the flow curves cannot be made to superimpose. The binary iron-base model alloys studied here show a less pronounced difference in flow behavior for neutrons and electrons than exhibited by the steels, implicating the effect of alloy chemistry. Our results are analyzed in the context of classical theories dealing with the interaction between the deformation microstructure, i.e. glide dislocations, and irradiation-produced defects. Our findings provide clues about the way different alloy constituents interact with the different kinds of irradiation damage to strengthen the material differently

Strength and rupture-life transitions caused by secondary carbide precipitation in HT-9 during high-temperature low-rate mechanical testing

The martensitic-ferritic alloy HT-9 is slated for long-term use as a fuel-cladding material in the Integral Fast Reactor. Analysis of published high-temperature mechanical property data suggests that secondary carbide precipitation would occur during service life causing substantial strengthening of the as-heat-treated material. Aspects of the kinetics of this precipitation process are extracted from calculations of the back stress necessary to produce the observed strengthening effect under various creep loading conditions. The resulting Arrhenius factor is shown to agree quantitatively with shifts to higher strength of crept material in reference to the intrinsic strength of HT-9. The results of very low constant strain-rate high-temperature tensile tests on as-heat-treated HT-9 that focus on the transition in strength with precipitation will be presented and related to rupture-life