M.A. Lebyodkin

Effect of Grain Refinement on Jerky Flow in an Al-Mg-Sc Alloy

The influence of microstructure on the manifestations of the Portevin–Le Chatelier (PLC) effect was studied in an Al-Mg-Sc alloy with unrecrystallized, partially recrystallized, and fully recrystallized grain structures. It was found that the extensive grain refinement promotes plastic instability: the temperature–strain rate domain of the PLC effect becomes wider and the critical strain for the onset of serrations decreases. Besides, the amplitude of regular stress serrations observed at room temperature and an intermediate strain rate increases several times, indicating a strong increase of the contribution of solute solution hardening to the overall strength. Moreover, the grain refinement affects the usual sequence of the characteristic types of stress serrations, which characterize the dynamical mechanisms governing a highly heterogeneous unstable plastic flow. Finally, it reduces the strain localization and surface roughness and diminishes the difference between the surface markings detected in the necked area and in the region of uniform elongation.

The intermittency of plasticity in an Al3%Mg alloy

Statistics of acoustic emission accompanying plastic deformation and of stress serrations caused by the Portevin-Le Chatelier effect are studied during tension of an Al3%Mg alloy at room temperature. Power-law distributions of acoustic emission reflecting self-organization of dislocations and intermittency of plastic flow are found, irrespective of the strain rate, both before and after the critical strain for the onset of the serrated flow. In contrast, several regimes including both power-law and peaked distributions are observed at the macroscopic scale of stress serrations, depending on the applied strain rate.

A field theory of piezoelectric media containing dislocations

A field theory is proposed to extend the standard piezoelectric framework for linear elastic solids by accounting for the presence and motion of dislocation fields and assessing their impact on the piezoelectric properties. The proposed theory describes the incompatible lattice distortion and residual piezoelectric polarization fields induced by dislocation ensembles, as well as the dynamic evolution of these fields through dislocation motion driven by coupled electro-mechanical loading. It is suggested that (i) dislocation mobility may be enhanced or inhibited by the electric field, depending on the polarity of the latter, (ii) plasticity mediated by dislocation motion allows capturing long-term time-dependent properties of piezoelectric polarization. Due to the continuity of the proposed electro-mechanical framework, the stress/strain and polarization fields are smooth even in the dislocation core regions. The theory is applied to gallium nitride layers for validation. The piezoelectric polarization fields associated with bulk screw/edge dislocations are retrieved and surface potential modulations are predicted. The results are extended to dislocation loops.

Correlation versus randomization of jerky flow in an AlMgScZr alloy using acoustic emission

Jerky flow in solids results from collective dynamics of dislocations which gives rise to serrated deformation curves and a complex evolution of the strain heterogeneity. A rich example of this phenomenon is the Portevin-Le Chatelier effect in alloys. The corresponding spatiotemporal patterns showed some universal features which provided a basis for a well-known phenomenological classification. Recent studies revealed peculiar features in both the stress serration sequences and the kinematics of deformation bands in Al-based alloys containing fine microstructure elements, such as nanosize precipitates and/or submicron grains. In the present work, jerky flow of an AlMgScZr alloy is studied using statistical analysis of stress serrations and the accompanying acoustic emission. As in the case of coarse-grained binary AlMg alloys, the amplitude distributions of acoustic events obey a power-law scaling which is usually considered as evidence of avalanchelike dynamics. However, the scaling exponents display specific dependences on the strain and strain rate for the investigated materials. The observed effects bear evidence to a competition between the phenomena of synchronization and randomization of dislocation avalanches, which may shed light on the mechanisms leading to a high variety of jerky flow patterns observed in applied alloys.

Experimental investigation of the effect of thresholding on temporal statistics of avalanches

Avalanchelike behavior reflected in power-law statistics is a ubiquitous property of extended systems addressed in a number of generic models. The paper presents an experimental investigation of the effect of thresholding on the statistics of durations and waiting times between avalanches using acoustic emission accompanying unstable plastic deformation. It is found that durations of acoustic events obey power-law statistical distributions robust against thresholding. The quiescent time distributions follow the Poisson law for low threshold values. Both these results corroborate the hypothesis that plastic deformation is akin to the phenomena associated with self-organized criticality (SOC), often advanced on the basis of power-law amplitude statistics. Increasing the threshold height enforces deviation from the Poisson distributions toward apparent power-law behavior. Such a thresholding effect may hinder the experimental determination of SOC-like dynamics because of the inevitable noise.

Role of Self-Organization of Dislocations in the Onset and Kinetics of Macroscopic Plastic Instability

The present paper examines two aspects of the problem of critical conditions of jerky flow in alloys, or the Portevin–Le Chatelier (PLC) effect. Recent development of dynamic strain aging (DSA) models proved their capacity to qualitatively reproduce complex non-monotonic behavior of the critical strain, providing that the parameters of theory are allowed to depend on strain. Experimental measurements of such strain dependences have been realized for the first time and used to revise the predictions of the critical strain and stress relaxation kinetics upon abrupt strain-rate changes. On the other hand, it is usually omitted from consideration that the PLC stress serrations can last very short time in comparison with the characteristic time of stress transients. The development of stress drops was studied with the aid of the acoustic emission (AE) technique. It is shown that such macroscopic instabilities are caused by clustering of AE events which otherwise occur all the time, including the periods of smooth plastic flow. The role of synchronization of dislocation avalanches in the development of abrupt stress serrations and its relationship with the predictions of the local DSA models is discussed.

The Portevin-Le Chatelier Effect and Kinematics of Deformation Bands in an Al-Mg-Sc Alloy: Effect of Grain Size

Stress serration patterns and kinematics of deformation bands associated with the Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) effect were examined for an Al–6%Mg–0.35%Mn–0.2%Sc–0.08%Zr–0.07%Cr (in wt.%) alloy with two grain sizes: 22 μm and 0.7 μm. The fine-grained structure of the alloy was obtained using equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) at 320°C up to a total strain of ~12. Tensile tests were carried out at room temperature and strain rate ranging from 10-5 s-1 to 10-2 s-1. In addition, high-frequency local extensometry technique was applied to monitor the evolution of the axial strain distribution during deformation. Depending on the strain rate, conventional A, B, C, or mixed types of serrations were observed on the stress-strain curves. These types of behavior usually correspond to different kinematics of the PLC bands, including band propagation and localization. However, the propagation regime was found to dominate in the investigated alloy in the entire strain-rate range. This unusual behavior of deformation bands and their features depending on the grain size are discussed.

Influence of Severe Plastic Deformation on Mechanical Properties of an AA5024 Alloy

The paper reports on the effect of severe plastic deformation on mechanical properties of an Al-4.57Mg-0.35Mn-0.2Sc-0.09Zr (in wt. pct.) alloy processed by equal channel angular pressing followed by cold rolling (CR). The sheets of the 5024 alloy with coarse grained (CG) structure exhibited a yield stress (YS) near 410 MPa and an ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 480 MPa, while the YS and UTS of this material with ultrafine-grained (UFG) structure increased to 530 and 560 MPa, respectively. On the other hand, the elongation to failure decreased by a factor of 2 and 4 after CR and CR following ECAP, respectively. It was shown that dislocation strengthening attributed to extensive CR plays a major role in achieving high strength of this alloy. Besides these macroscopic characteristics, jerky flow caused by the Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) instability of plastic deformation was examined. The formation of UFG structure results in a transition from mixed type A+B to pure type B PLC serrations. No such effect on the serrations type was observed after CR.

Onset of the Portevin-Le Chatelier Effect: Role of Synchronization of Dislocations

The problem of the onset of the Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) effect is revised by combining a study of the kinetics of the flow stress evolution upon abrupt changes in the applied strain rate and acoustic emission (AE) accompanying plastic deformation of an AlMg alloy. The kinetic measurements allow evaluating the strain-rate sensitivity of the flow stress and the time characteristics of transient processes as functions of plastic strain. Using known criteria of plastic instability, domains of instability are constructed in the (strain, strain rate) plane. A particular accent is put on the strain-rate range corresponding to the so-called “inverse” behavior. The comparison of such maps with experimental data on the critical strain testifies to the insufficiency of these criteria for explaining the onset of the PLC effect. Moreover, the slow transient kinetics contradicts observations of the fast development of stress drops. The AE measurements bear witness that the stress serrations are associated with bursts in duration of acoustic events generated by the collective motion of dislocations. The possible role of synchronization of dislocation dynamics on the onset of plastic instability is discussed.

Kinematics of deformation bands in an austenitic FeMnC TWIP steel

Tensile tests on a Fe22Mn0.6C steel at room temperature and different strain rates show serrations on the curves similar to Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) serrations of type A, associated with negative strain rate sensitivity. Propagation of deformation bands have been observed by high-rate extensometry over more than two orders of magnitude of the applied strain rate. This constitutes a remarkable difference with the PLC effect which shows a transition to static bands (type B or C) when the applied strain rate decreases. In this steel, bands moving as slow as a few tenth of mm/s are observed instead of static bands, which is two orders of magnitude lower than what is reported for type A PLC bands. This emphasises a strong correlation between plastic events, also confirmed by multifractal analysis of the tensile curves. Twinning which is responsible of the high strain hardening rate of this steel at room temperature is discussed as one of mechanisms of correlation between instabilities.