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Title: Structures and transitions in bcc tungsten grain boundaries and their role in the absorption of point defects

Journal Article · · Acta Materialia
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [1]
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV (United States)
  3. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)

We use atomistic simulations to investigate grain boundary (GB) phase transitions in elemental body-centered cubic (bcc) metal tungsten. Motivated by recent modeling study of grain boundary phase transitions in [100] symmetric tilt boundaries in face-centered cubic (fcc) copper, we perform a systematic investigation of [100] and [110] symmetric tilt high-angle and low-angle boundaries in bcc tungsten. The structures of these boundaries have been investigated previously by atomistic simulations in several different bcc metals including tungsten using the the γ-surface method, which has limitations. In this work we use a recently developed computational tool based on the USPEX structure prediction code to perform an evolutionary grand canonical search of GB structure at 0 K. For high-angle [100] tilt boundaries the ground states generated by the evolutionary algorithm agree with the predictions of the γ-surface method. For the [110] tilt boundaries, the search predicts novel high-density low-energy grain boundary structures and multiple grain boundary phases within the entire misorientation range. Molecular dynamics simulation demonstrate that the new structures are more stable at high temperature. We observe first-order grain boundary phase transitions and investigate how the structural multiplicity affects the mechanisms of the point defect absorption. Specifically, we demonstrate a two-step nucleation process, when initially the point defects are absorbed through a formation of a metastable GB structure with higher density, followed by a transformation of this structure into a GB interstitial loop or a different GB phase.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344; 17-LW-012; NA0001982
OSTI ID:
1524287
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1694060
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-749083; 934273
Journal Information:
Acta Materialia, Vol. 159, Issue C; ISSN 1359-6454
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 31 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Understanding and predicting damage and failure at grain boundaries in BCC Ta journal October 2019
Free energy of grain boundary phases: Atomistic calculations for Σ 5 ( 310 ) [ 001 ] grain boundary in Cu journal September 2018
Solute drag and dynamic phase transformations in moving grain boundaries preprint January 2019

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