Coupling of quasi-localized and phonon modes in glasses at low frequency

Boson peak of glasses,a THz vibrational excess compared to Debye squared-frequency law,remains mysterious in condensed-matter physics and material science.It appears in many different kinds of glassy matters and is also argued to exist in damped crystals.A consensus is that boson peak originates from the coupling of the(quasi)-localized non-phonon modes and the plane-wave-like phonon modes,but the coupling behavior is still not fully understood.In this paper,by modulating the content of localized modes and the frequencies of phonon modes,the coupling is clearly reflected in the localization and anharmonicity of low-frequency vibrational modes.The coupling enhances with increasing cooling rate and sample size.For finite sample size,phonon modes do not fully intrude into the low frequency to form a dense spectrum and they are not sufficiently coupled to the localized modes,thus there is no Debye level and boson peak is ill-defined.This suggestion remains valid in the presence of thermal motions induced by temperature,even though the anharmonicity comes into play.Our results point to the coupling of quasi-localized and phonon modes and its relation to the boson peak.

Experimental study on WFeNiMo high-entropy alloy projectile penetrating semi-infinite steel target

The appearance of high-entropy alloys (HEAs) makes it possible for a material to possess both high strength and high ductility. It is with great potential to apply HEAs under extreme conditions such as in the penetration process. In this paper, experiments of WFeNiMo HEA and tungsten heavy alloy (WHA) projectiles penetrating medium-carbon steel were conducted by using the ballistic gun and two-stage light-gas gun that can accelerate projectiles to impact velocities ranging from 1162 m/s to 2130 m/s. Depth of penetration (DOP) at elevated impact velocities of HEA and WHA projectiles were obtained firstly. Combined with the macroscopic and microscopic analysis of the residual projectiles, the transition of the penetration mode of the WFeNiMo HEA projectile was identified systemically. The experimental results indicated that the penetration mode of the HEA projectile changes from self-sharpening to mushrooming with the increase of impact velocity, while for the WHA projectile, the penetration mode is always mushrooming. The microstructure of the residual HEA projectiles showed that the phases tangle with each other and the morphology of the microstructure of the phases differs in the two penetration modes. Besides, the evolution of shear bands and fractures varies in the two modes. The evolution of the microstructure of HEAs causes the sharp-pointed nose to disappear and the HEA projectile ultimately becomes blunt as the impact velocity increases.

高强金属丝材的力学行为与变形机理

金属丝材作为一类独特的结构及功能材料,具有悠久的发展历史,并在诸多领域发挥着不可替代的作用.目前,人们已经发展了多种成熟的丝材加工工艺,并制备出多种高强韧金属丝材.其中,传统珠光体钢丝保持着金属丝材最高抗拉强度的世界纪录,而新型高熵合金丝材成功克服了传统丝材强度与塑性之间的矛盾关系和低温脆性的问题,显示出在复杂服役环境下的巨大应用潜力.由于金属丝材各异的微观结构和物理化学特性,其表现出各自独特的力学行为和复杂迥异的强塑性变形机理.多晶合金丝材的高强度主要源于界面强化和位错强化等多种强化机制的共同作用,其塑性变形涉及位错运动和变形孪生等多种复杂的塑性变形机理;非晶合金丝材的高强度源于其本征的原子无序结构,其塑性变形则主要与流动缺陷的激活与聚集有关.为了进一步实现金属丝材强韧化,研究者提出了微观组织细化和不均匀结构设计等有效途径.随着金属丝直径的减小,变形尺寸效应显现,考虑尺寸效应的应变梯度塑性理论相继发展并有效应用于金属丝材力学行为描述.本文对金属丝材的发展历史、制备工艺和典型高强金属丝材的力学行为、强塑性变形机理以及本构模型进行了回顾与综述,并对未来研究值得关注的方向提出了几点展望.

Crystal Plasticity-Based Spalling Damage Model for Ductile Metals

Spalling is a typical tensile failure that results from the coupling evolution of microstructure and microdamage under high strain-rate loading.To understand the spalling damage behavior of polycrystalline materials at mesoscale,this paper develops a spalling model by integrating the crystal plasticity theory and the microvoid growth theory.The model is implemented in ABAQUS simulation via the VUMAT subroutine to simulate a planar impact process of copper,and the results are compared with experimental data.Due to the inhomogeneity of crystal plastic slip,the local stress fluctuates severely near the grain boundary.Therefore,without introducing the fluctuation in the threshold stress for microdamage evolution,this model can simulate the heterogeneous feature of microvoid nucleation,growth,and coalescence in materials.The results show that microvoids tend to nucleate at 25°–50°misorientation angle grain boundaries,which undergo a high probability of stress fluctuation.

Chemical inhomogeneity inhibits grain boundary fracture:A comparative study in CrCoNi medium entropy alloy

Grain boundary(GB)fracture is arguably one of the most important reasons for the catastrophic failure of ductile polycrystalline materials.It is of interest to explore the role of chemical distribution on GB defor-mation and fracture,as GB segregation becomes a key strategy for tailoring GB properties.Here we report that the inhomogeneous chemical distribution effectively inhibits GB fracture in a model CoCrNi medium entropy alloy compared to a so-called‘average-atom’sample.Atomic deformation kinematics combined with electronic behavior analysis reveals that the strong charge redistribution ability in chemical disor-dered CrCoNi GBs enhances shear deformation and thus prevents GB crack formation and propagation.Inspects on the GBs with different chemical components and chemical distributions suggest that not only disordered chemical distribution but also sufficient“harmonic elements”with large electronic flexibility contribute to improving the GB fracture resistance.This study provides new insight into the influence mechanism of GB chemistry on fracture behavior,and yields a systematic strategy and criterion,from the atoms and electrons level,forward in the design of high-performance materials with enhanced GB fracture resistance.

Eutectic high entropy alloy syntactic foam

High-strength metallic foams have a wide range of applications in engineering as lightweight structural and energy-absorbing materials.However,it is challenging to obtain metallic foam with both good energy absorption performance and high strength.Here,we developed a novel metal matrix syntactic foam fabri-cated with AlCoCrFeNi_(2.1) eutectic high entropy alloy and alumina cenospheres that exhibits a remarkable combination of high strength and energy absorption performance under both quasi-static and dynamic compression.The porous structure of syntactic foam fully exploits the properties of the AlCoCrFeNi_(2.1) alloy matrix with a unique FCC/B2 dual-phase eutectic microstructure and thus yields exceptional per-formance.We discovered that this dual-phase microstructure not only provides high strength but also allows the pores to collapse in a progressive and diffusive way,which enables the formation of a high and smooth energy absorption platform.It is found that the heterogeneity between the two phases in the matrix can provide back stress strengthening,and it also induces multiple micro shear bands and microcracks as additional energy dissipation modes as the deformation proceeds.This unique mechanism ensures the strength of microstructures and makes them fracture promptly,which causes the balance of strengthening and softening on the macro scale.This work opens the avenue for developing advanced high-strength lightweight structural and energy-absorbing materials.

Theoretical analysis for self-sharpening penetration of tungsten high-entropy alloy into steel target with elevated impact velocities

The“self-sharpening”effect has been observed experimentally in the penetration of tungsten high-entropy alloy(WHEA)into steel targets in previous study.From the microscopic observation of the residual WHEA long-rod projectile(LRP),the multiphase structure at micro-scale of WHEA is the key effects on self-sharpening penetration process.In order to describe the distinctive penetration behavior,the interaction between micro phases is introduced to modify the hydrodynamic penetration model.The yield strengths of WHEA phases are determined based on the solid solution strengthening methods.Combined with the elbow-streamline model,the self-sharpening mechanism is revealed in view of the multi-phase flow dynamics and the flow field in the deformation area of the LRP nose is characterized to depict the shear layer evolution and the shape of the LRP’s nose as well as the determination of the penetration channel.The self-sharpening coefficient considering the reduction of nose radius is proposed and introduced into the penetration model to calculate the depth of penetration and the penetration channel.Results show that the multi-phase interaction at the microscopic level contributes to the inhomogeneous distribution of the WHEA phases.The shear layer evolution separates part of the LRP material from the nose and makes the nose radius decrease more quickly.It is also the reason that WHEA LRPs have a pointed nose compared with the mushroom nose of WHA heavy alloy(WHA)LRPs.The calculated results agree well with the corresponding experimental data of WHA and WHEA LRPs penetrating into semi-infinite medium carbon steel targets with elevated impact velocities.

Lattice distortion and magnetic property of high entropy alloys at low temperatures

Deformation mechanisms and magnetic properties of medium and high entropy alloys(MEA/HEAs)closely relate to lattice distortion and are strongly temperature-dependent,in particular,at low temperature ranges.However,little attention has been paid to the evolution of lattice distortion with temperature decreasing and its effects on deformation behavior and magnetic state transition.In this work,we carry out in situ synchrotron radiation based X-ray powder diffraction(SR-XRD)experiments from 293 to 123 K aiming for determining lattice distortion evolutions of Cr Co Ni MEA,Cr Fe Co Ni and Cr Mn Fe Co Ni HEAs.Magnetic measurements at corresponding low temperatures and cryogenic ranges are further conducted.The in situ SR-XRD results demonstrate a general reduction of lattice distortion magnitude with temperature decreasing,which shows a similar tendency with that of reported stacking fault energy(SFE)values.It is thus suggested that lattice distortion reduction possibly makes a critical contribution to deformation mechanism transition.The magnetic measurement results show a clear ferromagnetic transition of Cr Fe Co Ni HEA when temperature is below 173 K.While,no obvious magnetic state transition is observed for Cr Co Ni MEA and Cr Mn Fe Co Ni HEA.The present findings on lattice distortion evolutions will pave the way for designing targeted HEAs with particular properties.