Ultrafast shape change and joining of small-volume materials using nanoscale electrical discharge

Using nanoscale electrical-discharge-induced rapid Joule heating, we developed a method for ultrafast shape change and joining of small-volume materials. Shape change is dominated by surface-tension-driven convection in the transient liquid melt, giving an extremely high strain rate of N106 s-1. In addition, the heat can be dissipated in small volumes within a few microseconds through thermal conduction, quenching the melt back to the solid state with cooling rates up to 108 K.s-1. We demonstrate that this approach can be utilized for the ultrafast welding of small-volume crystalline Mo （a refractory metal） and amorphous Cu49Zr51 without introducing obvious microstructural changes, distinguishing the process from bulk welding.

Portrait and Classification of Individual Haze Particulates

Haze (known as “Mai” 霾 in Chinese) threatens the health of billions of people across the globe. To begin solving this problem without severely slowing down the economy, one has to mechanistically and geographically pinpoint the sources of these pollutants, the key of which is to thoroughly characterize and fingerprint the particulates. Here we present a broad survey and classification of thousands of individual airborne particu-lates by using the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to measure their diverse mor-phologies and chemistries, which could eventually be organized into a “haze finger-print database”. For instance, one collection in Xi’an City, China during March-April 2014 yielded 494 airborne particulates that settled on silicon wafers placed outside the window of a 3rd floor office. These 494 particulates were manually imaged with high resolution (down to 2 nm), elementally mapped using Energy-dispersive X-ray Spec-troscopy (EDS), and were identified and categorized into presumed source classes such as construction activities (Ca, Al, Si-O), coal burning (sulfates), biologic (pollen, bac-teria), automotive, mining, steel making, and etc. About 20% of the particulates have mysterious origins, as it is still unclear how they were formed, and a fraction of them contained clearly hazardous elements such as lead and chromium. For future work, we propose using unmanned aerial vehicles with a special “rolling film” substrate that can autonomously collect airborne particulates, a customized SEM auto-imaging system, and machine learning software to establish an online open-access database. The end goal would be to monitor and analyze the particulate pollutants that are pumped into our atmosphere every day, and precisely track down their sources so we can better model and police the quality of the air around us.

Effect of ordered helium bubbles on deformation and fracture behavior of α-Zr

Radiation-induced helium bubbles are detrimental to the mechanical properties of metals, usually causing severe hardening and embrittlement. Hexagonal close-packed(HCP) α-Zr alloys are one of the primary structural materials for nuclear applications, however, the effect of helium bubbles on their deformation and fracture behaviors still remains unexplored. Here, we found that ordered helium bubbles prefer to align along the basal plane in HCP α-Zr. Micro-scale in situ tensile tests revealed that helium bubbles less than 8 nm in size can increase the critical resolved shear stress of the prismatic slip. However, once the helium bubbles are larger than 8 nm, a bubble-softening effect happens due to a decrease in number density of helium bubbles and an increase in porosity. Once the Schmid factor of basal slip is considerably higher than prismatic slip, bubble coalescence along the basal plane becomes the major failure mode in helium-irradiated α-Zr.

Insight from in situ microscopy into which precipitate morphology can enable high strength in magnesium alloys

Magnesium alloys, while boasting light weight, suffer from a major drawback in their relatively low strength. Identifying the microstructural features that are most effective in strengthening is therefore a pressing challenge. Deformation twinning often mediates plastic yielding in magnesium alloys. Unfortunately, due to the complexity involved in the twinning mechanism and twin-precipitate interactions, the optimal precipitate morphology that can best impede twinning has yet to be singled out. Based on the understanding of twinning mechanism in magnesium alloys, here we propose that the lamellar precipitates or the network of plate-shaped precipitates are most effective in suppressing deformation twinning. This has been verified through quantitative in situ tests inside a transmission electron microscope on a series of magnesium alloys containing precipitates with different morphology. The insight gained is expected to have general implications for strengthening strategies and alloy design. 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science ＆ Technology.