Indenter size effect on the reversible incipient plasticity of Al(001) surface:Quasicontinuum study

Indenter size effect on the reversible incipient plasticity of Al(001) surface is studied by quasicontinuum simulations.Results show that the incipient plasticity under small indenter, the radius of which is less than ten nanometers, is dominated by a simple planar fault defect that can be fully removed after withdrawal of the indenter; otherwise, irreversible incipient plastic deformation driven by a complex dislocation activity is preferred, and the debris of deformation twins, dislocations,and stacking fault ribbons still remain beneath the surface when the indenter has been completely retracted. Based on stress distributions calculated at an atomic level, the reason why the dislocation burst instead of a simple fault ribbon is observed under a large indenter is the release of the intensely accumulated shear stress. Finally, the critical load analysis implies that there exists a reversible-irreversible transition of incipient plasticity induced by indenter size. Our findings provide a further insight into the incipient surface plasticity of face-centered-cubic metals in nano-sized contact issues.

Unveiling the grain boundary-related effects on the incipient plasticity and dislocation behavior in nanocrystalline CrCoNi medium-entropy alloy

The incipient plasticity and dislocation behavior in a nanocrystalline(NC)CrCoNi medium-entropy alloy were systematically investigated in terms of pop-in events during instrumental nano-indentation tests.Quantitative statistical analysis and molecular dynamic simulations were performed to reveal the effects of grain boundaries(GBs)on initial stages of plastic deformation.Multiple pop-in events appeared during loading on the NC CrCoNi.The first pop-in that represents the initial yielding was identified to be controlled by dislocation nucleation,which is in sharp contrast to the continuous elastic-plastic transition mediated by GB mechanisms in NC pure metals.This can be attributed to the sluggish kinetics of the chemically complex GBs(CCGBs)in the NC CrCoNi that hinders diffusive GB activities but facilitates dislocation nucleation.Subsequent pop-ins were also found to be closely related to the extra dragging effects imposed by the CCGBs on dislocation propagation in the NC alloy.Moreover,the extremely small grain sizes and the consequent high-volume fraction of GBs in the NC alloy severely restrict the lengths of dislocation source and the radii of dislocation loop,giving rise to a higher critical stress,smaller activation volume and lower pop-in width as compared with its coarse-grained counterpart.These results provide new insights into the onset of nano-plasticity in concentrated multi-principal element alloys.

Interstitial concentration effects on incipient plasticity and dislocation behaviors of face-centered cubic FeNiCr multicomponent alloys based on nanoindentation

Interstitial atoms that commonly occupy the octahedral or tetrahedral interstices of face-centered cubic(FCC)lattice,can significantly affect the dislocation behaviors on deformation.Recently,interstitial doping has been applied to tune the mechanical properties of the emerging multicomponent,often termed high-entropy alloys(HEAs)or medium-entropy alloys(MEAs).However,the fundamental mechanisms of the dislocation nucleation and the onset of plasticity of interstitial multicomponent alloys governed by the concentration of interstitial atoms are still unclear.Therefore,in the present work,an instrumented nanoindentation was employed to investigate the interstitial concentration effects of carbon atoms on single FCC-phase equiatomic FeNiCr MEAs during loading.The results show that the pop-in events that denote the onset of incipient plasticity are triggered by the sudden heterogeneous dislocation nucleation via the primary atoms-vacancy exchange with the instant stress field,regardless of the interstitial concentration.Moreover,the measured activation volumes for dislocation nucleation of the FeNiCr MEAs are determined to be increased with the interstitial concentration,which definitely suggests the participation of interstitial atoms in the nucleation process.Besides,it is also found that the average value measured in statistics of the maximum shear stress corresponding to the first pop-in is enhanced with the interstitial concentration.Such scenario can be attributed to the improved local change transfer and lattice cohesion caused by the interstitial atoms with higher concentrations.Furthermore,the significant drag effect of interstitial carbon atoms hinders the mobile dislocations before exhaustion,which severely suppresses the subsequent occurrence of pop-in events in the carbon-doped specimens.The work gives a microscale view of interstitial effects on the mechanical properties of multicomponent alloys,which can further help to develop new interstitial strengthening strategies for structural materials with remarkable performance.