5 Werkstofftechnik
Filtern
Dokumenttyp
- Zeitschriftenartikel (19)
- Vortrag (6)
- Beitrag zu einem Tagungsband (2)
- Posterpräsentation (1)
Sprache
- Englisch (28) (entfernen)
Schlagworte
Organisationseinheit der BAM
- 5 Werkstofftechnik (28) (entfernen)
Paper des Monats
- ja (2)
Unlike conventional alloys, which typically consist of one main element, high-entropy alloys (HEAs) contain five or more principal elements, which broaden chemical complexity and with it a realm of synergistic mechanisms. The AlMo0.5NbTa0.5TiZr HEA initiated a subclass of Al-containing refractory (r)HEAs that has recently drawn attention [2]. The alloy has a superalloy-resembling B2/bcc nanostructure, which inspired its name refractory high entropy superalloy (RSA). With high-temperature (HT) compressive strengths beyond conventional Ni-based superalloys, this nanostructure could be used for improved HT structural applications. However, in the application-relevant HT regime the Al-Zr-rich B2 phase decomposes to form a hexagonal Al-Zr-based intermetallic (Al4-xZr5; x: 0..1) [3,4]. This work explores the fascinating yet fatal micromechanisms associated to this phase transformation, in the context of creep, annealing and oxidation experiments performed between 800 and 1200 °C.
The material was produced by arc-melting and heat treatment in argon, which lead to grain boundaries decorated with up to 7%. Interrupted constant-load creep tests were performed under vacuum (at 10-4 Pa), at 900–1100 °C with external tensile stresses of 30–120 MPa. Oxidation experiments were separately conducted for 24 hours at 800 and 1000 °C in both dry (21% O2 + 79% N2) and humid (8% O2 + 74% N2 + 18% H2O) air. After the experiments, the samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to reveal degradation mechanisms. Crystallographic texture, orientation relationships and stabilization of an oxygen-containing iso structure (Al4-xZr5(Ox-y); y: 0..x) of the Al-Zr-rich intermetallic are found and discussed.
The field of materials science is defined as “the study of the properties of solid materials and how those properties are determined by a material’s composition and structure.”. Many –if not most– of the materials that are produced nowadays owe their properties to structures engineered down to the nanoscopic level. This need has been partly realized thanks to the understanding of materials’ building blocks via characterization techniques that reach this level of resolution. Transmission electron microscopy, since its first implementation in the early 1930s (in Berlin), has been implemented to achieve imaging –and spectral– analysis at lateral resolutions down to the atomic level.
In this contribution, a series of practical examples will be presented, where applied materials are characterized by a range of transmission electron microscopy techniques to understand structural and functional properties of a wide range of materials. Among these materials examples will be presented on structural conventionally and additively manufactured metallic alloys, high entropy alloys, dissimilar aluminum-to-steel welds, magnetic nanoparticles, ceramic coatings, high temperature oxidation products. Addressed will be either the effect of processing route or that of the exposure to experimental conditions similar to those found in the respective intended applications.
Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic alloys has gained momentum in the past decade for industrial applications. The microstructures of AM metallic alloys are complex and hierarchical from the macroscopic to the nanometer scale. When using laser-based powder bed fusion (L-PBF) process, two main microstructural features emerge at the nanoscale: the melt pool boundaries (MPB) and the solidification cellular substructure.
Here, details of the MPB are revealed to clearly show the three-dimensional nature of MPBs with changes of cell growth of direction and their relation to their surrounding cellular substructure, as investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for L-PBF 316L austenitic stainless steel (cf. Figure 1). A hitherto unknown modulated substructure with a period of 21 nm is further discovered within cells as the result of a partial Ga+-focused ion beam-induced ferritic transformation of the austenite. Cell cores and cell boundaries differ notably regarding the modulated substructure.
Dislocations are the carriers of plastic deformation. As such, their characterization offers important information on the properties they affect. In this contribution, a new tool is presented, which is incorporated in Amira ZIB Edition and allows for three-dimensional (3D) imaging and quantification of dislocations substructures from thick regions an electron-transparent specimen. In the tool, the dislocation segments are traced on diffraction contrast images that are obtained in the transmission electron microscope (TEM). The uncertainties related to the experimental setup and to the proposed method are discussed on the base of a tilt series.
9-12% Cr ferritic-martensitic stainless steels are widely used as high temperature construction materials in fossil fueled power plants due to their excellent creep and oxidation resistance, but changes in electricity markets during the last two decades have considerably changed the typical working conditions of these facilities. The growing share of renewable energy sources in power generation forces most of these plants into flexible operation with frequent load shifts or shutdowns. These cyclic operation profiles constitute a major lifetime issue, raising the question which fundamental processes govern the reaction of ferritic-martensitic steels to cyclic load and temperature variations.
The present contribution reports on current findings obtained in a multidisciplinary project funded by German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) which combines cyclic mechanical and cyclic oxidation testing of different 9-12% Cr grades with detailed microstructural analyses and related micromechanical modeling.
In the present first part of our contribution, an overview will be given on the results obtained in the mechanical testing programme of the project. Mechanical analyses were carried out on P91 and (mainly) P92 steel grades, particularly looking at softening phenomena and lifetimes obtained in isothermal cyclic loading (low cycle fatigue, LCF), non-isothermal cyclic loading (thermo-mechanical fatigue, TMF), and service-like combinations of creep and fatigue periods. For this purpose, cylindrical specimens were extracted from thick-walled steam pipes, orthogonal to the pipe axis, and subjected to strain controlled cyclic loading (± 0.2 to ±0.5 % mechanical strain) to different degrees of softening at temperatures up to 620 °C.
The test results will be presented and discussed with a focus on the impact of hold periods (i.e. combined creep-fatigue conditions) on mechanical softening, lifetime and crack formation. Details on the microstructural evolution and their representation in a micromechanical model will be given in a second, complementary contribution to this conference.
The current competitive situation on electricity markets forces conventional power plants into cyclic operation regimes with frequent load shifts and starts/shutdowns. In the present work, the cyclic mechanical behavior of ferritic-martensitic 9-12 % Cr steels under isothermal and thermomechanical loading was investigated for the example of grade P92 material. A continuous softening was observed under all loading conditions. The introduction of hold periods to the applied cycles reduced material lifetime, with most prominent effects at technologically relevant small strain levels. The microstructural characterization reveals a coarsening of the original “martensitic” lath-type microstructure to a structure with polygonal subgrains and reduced dislocation density. The microstructural data forms the input for a physically-based modelling approach.
A great amount of material properties is strongly influenced by dislocations, the carriers of plastic deformation. It is therefore paramount to have appropriate tools to quantify dislocation substructures with regard to their features, e.g., dislocation density, Burgers vectors or line direction. While the transmission electron microscope (TEM) has been the most widely-used equipment implemented to investigate dislocations, it usually is limited to the two-dimensional (2D) observation of three-dimensional (3D) structures. We reconstruct, visualize and quantify 3D dislocation substructure models from only two TEM images (stereo pairs) and assess the results. The reconstruction is based on the manual interactive tracing of filiform objects on both images of the stereo pair. The reconstruction and quantification method are demonstrated on dark field (DF) scanning (S)TEM micrographs of dislocation substructures imaged under diffraction contrast conditions. For this purpose, thick regions (> 300 nm) of TEM foils are analyzed, which are extracted from a Ni-base superalloy single crystal after high temperature creep deformation. It is shown how the method allows 3D quantification from stereo pairs in a wide range of tilt conditions, achieving line length and orientation uncertainties of 3% and 7°, respectively. Parameters that affect the quality of such reconstructions are discussed.
The current trend towards cyclic, “flexible” operation of fossil-fueled power plants constitutes a major issue regarding lifetime and operational safety of the respective installations and their components, as was outlined in our complementary contribution (Part 1). The present contribution reports on the investigation of the microstructure evolution in cyclically loaded ferritic-martensitic steels and its representation in a physically-based micromechanical model.
For this purpose, specimens of P92 steel grade from the mechanical test programme outlined in our companion contribution (Part 1) were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), including backscattered diffraction (EBSD) mapping, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). A novel method was implemented to improve angular resolution of EBSD scans. Additionally, a correlative microscopy approach was developed and used to correlate EBSD and TEM measurements on the same locations of thick regions of electron transparent specimens. By applying these techniques, a detailed quantitative microstructure description of the as-received material condition, namely in terms of subgrain morphology and dislocation density/distributions, was established. Comparisons of as-received and cyclically loaded conditions from tests interrupted at different stages of lifetime indicate a rapid redistribution of in-grain dislocations with a strong interaction between mobile dislocations and low angle grain boundaries (LABs).
The proposed micromechanical model is formulated in a viscoplastic self-consistent (VPSC) scheme, which is a mean-field approach that allows us to include the crystal details at the level of slip systems while avoiding the considerable computational costs of full-field approaches (such as the classical crystal plasticity finite element analysis). Being physically-based, the model uses dislocation densities and includes the interaction between dislocations, e.g. annihilation of mobile dislocations, and evolution of microstructure, e.g. the grain coarsening. Particularly, the constitutive laws for dislocation evolution and interaction between dislocations and low angle boundaries are calibrated based on two-dimensional discrete dislocation dynamic (2D DDD) simulations, which are performed at a micro-/meso-scale. The results of the beforementioned EBSD experiments are considered as a direct input, involving e.g. the amount of geometrically necessary dislocations, average misorientations and grain characteristics.
On the influence of crystallography on creep of circular notched single crystal superalloy specimens
(2020)
The present work contributes to a better understanding of the effect of stress multiaxiality on the creep behavior of single crystal Ni-base superalloys. For this purpose we studied the creep deformation and rupture behavior of double notched miniature creep tensile specimens loaded in three crystallographic directions [100], [110] and [111] (creep conditions: 950 °C and 400 MPa net section stress). Crystal plasticity finite element method (CPFEM) was used to analyze the creep stress and strain distributions during creep. Double notched specimens have the advantage that when one notch fails, the other is still intact and allows to study a material state which is close to rupture. No notch root cracking was observed, while microstructural damage (pores and micro cracks) were frequently observed in the center of the notch root region. This is in agreement with the FEM results (high axial stress and high hydrostatic stress in the center of the notched specimen). Twinning was observed in the notch regions of [110] and [111] specimens, and <112> {111} twins were detected and analyzed using orientation imaging scanning electron microscopy. The present work shows that high lattice rotations can be detected in SXs after creep fracture, but they are associated with the high strains accumulated in the final rupture event.
Shear testing can contribute to a better understanding of the plastic deformation of Ni-base superalloy single crystals. In the present study, shear testing is discussed with special emphasis placed on its strengths and weaknesses. Key mechanical and microstructural results which were obtained for the high-temperature (T ≈ 1000 °C) and low-stress (τ ≈ 200 MPa) creep regime are briefly reviewed. New 3D stereo STEM images of dislocation substructures which form during shear creep deformation in this regime are presented. It is then shown which new aspects need to be considered when performing double shear creep testing at lower temperatures (T < 800 °C) and higher stresses (τ > 600 MPa). In this creep regime, the macroscopic crystallographic [11−2](111) shear system deforms significantly faster than the [01−1](111) system. This represents direct mechanical evidence for a new planar fault nucleation scenario, which was recently suggested (Wu et al. in Acta Mater 144:642–655, 2018). The double shear creep specimen geometry inspired a micro-mechanical in-situ shear test specimen. Moreover, the in-situ SEM shear specimen can be FIB micro-machined from prior dendritic and interdendritic regions. Dendritic regions, which have a lower γ′ volume fraction, show a lower critical resolved shear stress.