Arjen Roos

High Strength Nanocrystallized Multilayered Structure Obtained by SMAT and Co-Rolling

. In the present study, a method is presented combining surface nanocrystalline treatment (SMAT) and the co-rolling process. The aim of this duplex treatment is the development of a 316L stainless steel semi-massive multilayered bulk structure with improved yield and ultimate tensile strengths, while conserving an acceptable elongation to failure by optimizing the volume fraction and distribution of the nano-grains in the laminate. To characterize this composite structure, tensile tests as well as sharp nanoindentation tests were carried out to follow the local hardness evolution through the cross-section of the laminate. Furthermore, transmission electron microscope (TEM) observations were carried out to determine the correlation between the microstructure, the local hardness and the mechanical response of the structure.

Electron Backscatter Diffraction and Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction Analysis of an Austenitic Stainless Steel Subjected to Surface Mechanical Attrition Treatment and Plasma Nitriding.

Austenitic 316L stainless steel can be used for orthopedic implants due to its biocompatibility and high corrosion resistance. Its range of applications in this field could be broadened by improving its wear and friction properties. Surface properties can be modified through surface hardening treatments. The effects of such treatments on the microstructure of the alloy were investigated here. Surface Mechanical Attrition Treatment (SMAT) is a surface treatment that enhances mechanical properties of the material surface by creating a thin nanocrystalline layer. After SMAT, some specimens underwent a plasma nitriding process to further enhance their surface properties. Using electron backscatter diffraction, transmission Kikuchi diffraction, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy, the microstructural evolution of the stainless steel after these different surface treatments was characterized. Microstructural features investigated include thickness of the nanocrystalline layer, size of the grains within the nanocrystalline layer, and depth of diffusion of nitrogen atoms within the material.

Predicting size effects in nickel-base single crystal superalloys with the Discrete-Continuous Model

The Discrete-Continuous Model, a coupling between dislocation dynamics and finite elements simulations, is used for modelling size effects in the mechanical properties of single-crystal superalloys. Both formation and evolution of the dislocation microstructures are analysed, and the crucial role of the storage of signed dislocations at the interfaces is discussed. The onset of plasticity is found to scale as the inverse of the channel width, and polarised dislocation networks at the interfaces significantly increase the flow stress with respect to a bulk crystal.

Analysis of the Impact of a Shot at Low Velocity Using the Finite Element Method. Application to the Ultrasonic Shot-Peening Process

Shot-peening is a surface treatment widely used in the industry to improve fatigue life of mechanical components by introducing compressive residual stresses. Ultrasonic shot-peening is a recent development of this process. While the classical shot-peening process uses pneumatic energy to project the shots, ultrasonic peening uses high-power ultrasounds. This energy source allows the use of larger shots projected at lower velocity as compared to classical shot-peening. This work aims at studying the mechanical response (restitution coefficient, residual stress field) of a surface impacted by a shot at low velocity using the finite element method and experimental analysis. This paper presents the simulation of a single elastic steel shot normally impacting an Aluminum alloy plate considered to exhibit a linear-elastic behavior and non-linear isotropic work hardening characteristics. The numerical simulations are carried out for different impact velocities in order to take into account the heterogeneous shot velocity field observed in an ultrasonic shot-peening chamber. We compare the simulated rebound energy and the indentation profiles obtained for different impact velocities to experimental results. The simulated residual stress field topology shows a strong dependence on the shot velocity. While numerical results obtained at high impact energy agree well with literature results, the residual stress distribution simulated for low impact energies shows a tensile layer below the impacted area. The restitution coefficients and the indentation profiles compare well with the experiments.

Semi-Massive Nanocrystallised Composites: From the Process to Mechanical and Microstructural Investigations

The aim of the present study is first to describe an original process, the so called duplex process, whose feature is the coupling between the well-known SMAT (Surface Mechanical Attrition Treatment) and the traditional co-rolling. The first step of this process consists of SMA-Treatment of 316L stainless steel sheets to generate nanocrystalline layers on their top surfaces according to the grain refinement mechanism of austenitic steels which is well described in the literature. During the second step, three treated sheets are co-rolled at 550°C to obtain a semi-massive nanocrystallised multilayer structure with improved mechanical strength alternating nanocrystalline, transition and coarse grain layers. The second part of this work deals with the mechanical and the microstructural characterization of the as-obtained structures. Thus, sharp nanoindentation tests performed over the cross section of the laminates coupled with Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) confirm the presence of nanograins after the thermomechanical treatment. In addition, the enhanced yield strength demonstrated by tensile tests correlate well with the theoretical volume fractions of nanoand transition layers. The interface cohesion between the sheets is tested by three-point bending tests and the interface bonding is evaluated by microstructural observations.

Microstrain Analysis of Titanium Aluminides

The aeronautic and automotive industries have shown a renewed interest in TiAl based alloys. The main reasons for such an interest are their low density (~3,8g/cm3), a good stiffness and a high strength for temperatures up to 750°C. However, these alloys exhibit, in their polycrystalline form, a poor ductility at room temperature with widely scattered values. The aim of this study is therefore to characterise their mechanical behaviour with a multiscale methodology, coupling microstructure analysis and strain field measurements. This methodology employs orientation imaging microscopy as well as digital imaging correlation techniques with an intragranular step size of a few micrometers. Two chemical compositions (47 at. % Al and 48 at. % Al) and two processing routes (casting and powder metallurgy) are studied. Thus, four different types of final microstructures are considered, from fully lamellar Ti3Al (a2) + TiAl (g) microstructure to bimodal ones composed of two-phase (a2+g) lamellar grains and monolithic g grains. Firstly, the microstructure is characterised crystallographically and morphologically. This allows the identification of a representative volume element (RVE) inside the analysed volume. Then, uniaxial mechanical tests are performed for each microstructure, and the strain fields are analysed with a multiscale approach, which determines the spatial distribution of the strain field heterogeneity with respect to the different microstructures.

Influence of boundary conditions on strain field analysis for polycrystalline finite element simulations

This paper presents a first validation of a novel methodology for identifying the parameters of a crystallographic elastoplastic constitutive law. This is accomplished by comparing simulation and experimental results at different length scales: the microstructure scale and the representative volume element scale. Experimentally, the microscopic strain fields and the microstrucural characteristics can be obtained only at the surface of the specimen. As a consequence, in finite element simulations only at the surface there is a oneto-one correspondence between the mesh and the experimental observed grain morphology. In this paper, the morphology of the subsurface grains is obtained by a simple extension in the thickness direction of the surface morphology. The aim of this study is then to verify whether the surface data contain sufficient information for the identification of the parameters of the constitutive law.

Thermomechanical Modelling of a Steel Plate Impacted by a Shot and Experimental Validation

This work presents an experimental and numerical study of the thermo-mechanical problem of a steel plate impacted by a shot. The temperature rise is estimated and its effect on the compressive residual stress is analyzed. The simulations show that the value of the compressive residual stresses at the surface of the plate is modified when thermo-mechanical effects are included in the model as compared with simulation including hardening effects only. To validate this numerical study, an experimental device has been developed to measure the temperature rise after the impact. The experiment consists of the impact of a shot on a metallic plate. The temperature measurement is performed by an infrared camera located on the side of the plate opposite to the impact. Comparison between these experimental measurements and the numerical solution gives good agreement (to within 5%).

Interaction between ductile damage and texture evolution in finite polycrystalline elastoplasticity

In this paper, a multiscale model of ductile damage and its effects on the inelastic behavior of face centered cubic polycrystalline metallic materials, such as the evolution of their crystallographic textures, are investigated. The constitutive equations are written in the framework of rate-dependent polycrystalline plasticity at the microscopic scale. Plasticity and damage are coupled through a ductile damage variable introduced at the scale of the crystallographic slip systems of each grain. When homogenized to the macro-scale, this becomes an approximate phenomenological measure of the macroscopic ductile damage which can describe the material degradation by initiation, growth, and coalescence of micro-defects. In this paper, thermally activated intergranular (or creep) damage is not taken into account. Both theoretical and numerical aspects of the model are presented. The model is implemented into a general-purpose finite element code in order to analyze the effects of texture evolution and ductile damage initiation in the grains with favorably oriented slip systems. The capability of the proposed model to predict the plastic strain localization and the induced textural evolution, as well as the effects of the ductile damage and its evolution up to the final macroscopic failure are studied for a classical tensile loading path, applied to a representative volume element and to a 3D tensile specimen on which a parametric study has been carried out.

Use of Instrumented Microindentation to Determine the Global Mechanical Behavior of Nanocrystallised Copper Samples

The excellent corrosion properties of copper justify its use in a large number of industrial applications, in spite of its low strength in the traditional state. To overcome this problem and to enhance the mechanical behavior of this material, the Surface Mechanical Attrition Treatment (SMAT) seems to be well-adapted [1]. As shown in several previous works, SMA-Treatment induces a grain refinement up to the nanometer scale in the top surface layer of the treated sample, through severe plastic deformation performed at high strain rate. While the grain size of the untreated material is in the micrometer scale, nanograins are generated beneath the treated surface. Between this nanocrystallised layer and the bulk of the sample, a transition layer is also present which is characterised by a grain size gradient: the grain size grows from the nanometer to the micrometer scale as the depth below the treated surface increases. The treated metal can thus be seen as a multilayered material. All these microstructural changes lead to strong modifications of the plastic properties of the samples subjected to SMAT [2] [3]. In the last years, several methods have been proposed to determine the Young’s modulus, the yield stress and the strain hardening coefficient using microindentation tests. More recently, Cao and Lu [4] [5] developed a new inverse method to extract plastic properties of metallic materials based on instrumented spherical indentation.