Extended Shear Deformation of the Immiscible Cu–Nb Alloy Resulting in Nanostructuring and Oxygen Ingress with Enhancement in Mechanical Properties
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- Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352, United States
- Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352, United States
- Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352, United States, Material Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, United States, Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois Street, Golden, Colorado 8040, United States
Deformation processing of immiscible systems is observed to disrupt thermodynamic equilibrium, often resulting in non-equilibrium microstructures. The microstructural changes including nanostructuring, hierarchical distribution of phases, localized solute supersaturation, and oxygen ingress result from high strain extended deformation causing a significant change in mechanical properties. Due to the dynamic evolution of material under large strain shear load, a detailed understanding of the transformation pathway has not been established. Additionally, the influence of these microstructural changes on mechanical properties is also not well characterized. Here, an immiscible Cu-4 at.% Nb alloy is subjected to a high-strain shear deformation (~200); the deformation-induced changes in morphology, crystal structure, and composition of Cu and Nb phases, as a function of total strain, are characterized using transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography. Further, a multimodal experiment-guided computational approach is used to depict the initiation of deformation by an increase in misorientation boundaries by crystal plasticity-based grain misorientation modeling (strain ~0.6). Then co-deformation and nano-lamination of Cu and Nb are envisaged by a finite element method-based computational fluid dynamics model with strain ranging from 10 to 200. Finally, the experimentally observed amorphization of the severely sheared supersaturated Cu-Nb-O phase was validated using the first principle-based simulation using density functional theory while highlighting the influence of oxygen ingress during deformation. Furthermore, the nanocrystalline microstructure shows >2-fold increase in hardness and compressive yield strength of the alloy elucidating the potential of deformation processing to obtain high strength low alloyed metals. Our approach presents a step-by-step evolution of a microstructure in an immiscible alloy undergoing severe shear deformation, which is broadly applicable to materials processing based on friction stir, extrusion, rolling, and surface shear deformation under wear and can be directly applied in understanding material behavior during these processes.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- NE0008739; AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1863451
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1865054; OSTI ID: 1866813
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-169151
- Journal Information:
- ACS Omega, Journal Name: ACS Omega Vol. 7 Journal Issue: 16; ISSN 2470-1343
- Publisher:
- American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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