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Influence of solid solution strengthening on the local mechanical properties of single crystal and ultrafine-grained binary Cu–Al X solid solutions

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Abstract

In this work, the influence of Al-solutes on the mechanical behavior of Cu–Al X solid solutions has been studied using indentation strain rate jump tests for single crystalline and ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructures from high pressure torsion (HPT) processing. Al-solutes in Cu classically lead to a solid solution strengthening, coupled with a decrease in stacking fault energy, which influences also the grain size after HPT processing. For all alloys, a higher hardness is found at lower indentation depths, which can be nicely described by a modified Nix/Gao model down to 100 nm indentation depth. Among the single crystals, the largest size effects are found for the higher solute contents, indicating a stronger work hardening at small length scales for the solid solutions. The dilute UFG solid solutions showed a strong softening after a strain rate reduction test, with a pronounced transient region. Cu–Al15 is, however, quite stable, showing abrupt changes in hardness without strong transients. This indicates that solute solution strengthening does not only influence the indentation size effect and structure formation during HPT processing but also stabilizes the grain structure during subsequent deformation.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Parts of the experimental work were performed when V.M-K. and K.D. were still at the Chair of General Materials Properties (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg); therefore, the authors thank Prof. M. Göken for his support. Further, financial support by the Austrian Federal Government (837900) within the framework of the COMET Funding Program (MPPE, A7.19) (V.M-K.) and by the ERC (USMS: 340185) (R.P.) as well as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under grant Nos. 51331007 and 51471170 (Z.F.) is highly appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Physical Metallurgy and Materials Testing, Montanuniversität Leoben, Leoben, A-8700, Austria

    Verena Maier-Kiener

  2. Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, People’s Republic of China

    Xianghai An, Linlin Li & Zhefeng Zhang

  3. School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Xianghai An

  4. Erich-Schmid-Institute of Materials Science, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Leoben, A-8700, Austria

    Reinhard Pippan

  5. Physical Metallurgy, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, 64287, Germany

    Karsten Durst

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  1. Verena Maier-Kiener
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Correspondence to Karsten Durst.

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Maier-Kiener, V., An, X., Li, L. et al. Influence of solid solution strengthening on the local mechanical properties of single crystal and ultrafine-grained binary Cu–Al X solid solutions. Journal of Materials Research 32, 4583–4591 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2017.320

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