Thermally assisted deformation of structural superplastics and nanostructured materials: a personal perspective

Abstract

Optimal structural superplasticity and the deformation of nanostructured materials in the thermally activated region are regarded as being caused by the same physical process. In this analysis, grain/interphase boundary sliding controls the rate of deformation at the level of atomistics. Boundary sliding develops to a mesoscopic level by plane interface formation involving two or more boundaries and at this stage the rate controlling step is boundary migration. In other words, grain/interphase boundary sliding is viewed as a two-scale process. The non-zero, unbalanced shear stresses present at the grain/interphase boundaries ensure that near-random grain rotation is also a non-rate controlling concomitant of this mechanism. Expressions have been derived for the free energy of activation for the atomic scale rate controlling process, the threshold stress that should be crossed for the commencement of mesoscopic boundary sliding, the inverse Hall-Petch effect and the steady state rate equation connecting the strain rate to the independent variables of stress, temperature and grain size. Beyond the point of inflection in the log stress-log strain rate plot, climb controlled multiple dislocation motion within the grains becomes increasingly important and at sufficiently high stresses becomes rate controlling. The predictions have been validated experimentally.