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a
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Materials Science; Technology Division, MS G755, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
b
Departments of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1453, USA
Accepted 4 May 2004
Available online 4 June 2004
Abstract
Nanostructured materials produced by severe plastic deformation can be tailored to have both superior performance and
superior properties. These materials are attractive for use in a range of applications from biomedical to aerospace industries.
2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
conventional metals as in, for example, the production techniques are contamination-free and porosity-free so
of wire. However, they are not competitive for many that they usually have high strength and good ductility.
larger-dimension higher-volume applications. As in any It can be shown that SPD processing decreases the
commercialization, a successful combination of high ductility to a smaller extent than conventional defor-
performance and low cost will be the factor that ulti- mation processes such as rolling, drawing and extrusion.
mately determines whether NS materials move from the For example, experiments were conducted to compare
laboratory to widespread industrial utilization. The the strength and ductility of the 3004 aluminum alloy
fabrication rate is a key determinant of nanomaterial processed by ECAP and cold rolling [26]. It was found
cost, ranging from a fraction of a nanometer/second that processing by ECAP led to a greater retention of
(nm/s) for synthesis using a scanning tunneling micro- ductility than cold rolling. In practice, the higher duc-
scope, to hundreds of nm/s for electroless forming, to tility of materials processed by ECAP is a very attractive
thousands of nm/s for photo-electroforming, to millions characteristic for structural applications.
of nm/s for conventional machining and forming. Thus, Some NS materials produced by SPD have been
SPD has a signicant potential for producing NS found to have an extraordinary combination of both
materials at rates, and therefore at costs, comparable to high strength and high ductility. For example, pure Cu
conventional material production methods. processed via ECAP for 16 passes with a back-pressure
In this paper, we shall focus on the performance and has a ductility close to that of coarse-grained Cu while at
possible applications of NS materials produced via SPD. the same time having a yield strength that is several
More specically, we shall focus on their mechanical times higher [27]. High strength and good ductility
properties and structural applications. Nanostructured rarely exist simultaneously in any material. Therefore,
and amorphous materials produced by other methods this combination is very attractive for advanced struc-
and their physical properties will also be discussed tural applications in areas such as aerospace and
briey. sporting goods. Unfortunately, the mechanism for
achieving such good mechanical properties is not yet
understood although it is generally recognized that the
2. Performance mechanical behavior of materials is determined by the
deformation mechanisms, which in turn are controlled
NS materials have unique mechanical and physical by the nature of the microstructures.
properties which are derived from their unique micro- Some progress has been made recently in under-
structures. These properties make them attractive for standing these deformation mechanisms. For example,
many potential commercial applications. the emission of partial dislocations from grain bound-
aries and the occurrence of stacking faults and defor-
2.1. Strength and ductility mation twinning in NS aluminum provides a sharp
contrast to the behavior of coarse-grained aluminum
The strength of a coarse-grained material usually where twinning is absent [28,29]. Another example is NS
follows the well-known HallPetch relationship, copper, which was found to twin abundantly when de-
r r0 Kd 1=2 , where r is the strength, d is the grain formed under HPT at room temperature and low strain
size, and r0 and K are constants. NS materials deviate rate [30]. In contrast, coarse-grained copper did not
from this relationship, with slower strength increase deform by twinning under the same deformation con-
(smaller K) as the grain size decreases. Below a certain dition [31]. The low ductility of NS materials has been
critical grain size, an inverse HallPetch relationship is attributed to their low work hardening because their
observed [24]. To have the desired combination of high small grain sizes do not accommodate further disloca-
strength and high ductility for structural applications, tion accumulation [32]. The twinning could be utilized to
smaller grains are not always desired. Ductility usually increase work hardening of NS materials and to conse-
decreases with decreasing grain size in NS materials. NS quently improve their ductility.
metals and alloys with grain sizes less than 20 nm or
amorphous alloys may have both lower strength and 2.2. Other mechanical properties
lower ductility than materials with larger grain sizes.
There exists an optimum grain size range in which a NS Although strength and ductility are the two most
material has both high strength and good ductility. important mechanical properties, there are other
The processing method also aects the strength and important properties for structural applications includ-
ductility. NS materials produced by consolidation of ing fracture toughness, fatigue strength and wear resis-
nanopowders usually are very brittle due to defects such tance.
as oxidation, trapped gas and porosity [25]. Electrode- To date, the fracture toughness has not been studied
posited NS lms may also be brittle due to impurities in NS samples because the measurements require large
from the electrolyte. NS materials produced by SPD samples in order to reach the required plane strain
Y.T. Zhu et al. / Scripta Materialia 51 (2004) 825830 827
SPD-processed metals may obviate the need for sub- perature superplasticity [45] in bulk nanostructured
sequent surface nishing steps. This will reduce the materials, where high strain rates refer to the tensile
manufacturing cost by eliminating or simplifying the testing of samples at rates at and above 102 s1 and low
processing steps. Forging is used to create product temperatures refer to tensile testing at homologous
shapes in the aerospace and automotive industry and temperatures below 0.5Tm . For example, there are re-
there is evidence that the forging temperatures can be ports of tensile elongations of up to >2000% at a strain
signicantly reduced when forging SPD-processed alu- rate of 1 s1 in a ZnAl alloy processed by ECAP [46]
minum alloys for aerospace applications. In addition, and the occurrence of superplasticity at homologous
the times for subsequent heat treatments may be re- temperatures as low as 0.36Tm for an electrodeposited
duced by as much as 50%. Thus, for alloys with heat nickel [45].
treatments in excess of 12 h, the energy and time savings The production of bulk nanostructured alloys in
are substantial. sheet form, with ultrane grains that are fairly stable at
elevated temperatures, has the potential to expand the
3.2.2. Formability through superplasticity superplastic forming niche into a processing regime that
The NS alloys processed by SPD can be formed su- will be eective in producing components for a very wide
perplastically at lower temperatures and faster rates range of commercial applications. The recent demon-
than is possible in conventional superplastic alloys. stration of the ECAP processing of plate samples [47]
Superplasticity is a ow process in which polycrystalline suggests that it may be a fairly easy task to produce
materials exhibit high elongations prior to ultimate superplastic NS materials that can be readily utilized in
failure. This type of ow is the characteristic feature of forming operations. However, even in the absence of
the superplastic forming industry in which complex sheet production, there are several potential applications
components, often having multiple curved surfaces, are for these materials in bulk form: an example of current
formed from superplastic sheet metals. The essential interest is the production of superplastic seismic damp-
requirements for achieving a superplastic forming ing devices [48].
capability are small grain sizes, typically less than 10
lm, and high forming temperatures, typically above
0.5 Tm , where Tm is the absolute melting point of the
material. At the present time, the superplastic forming 4. Summary and conclusions
industry occupies a small but viable cost-eective niche
through the production of high-cost low-volume com- 1. Processing through the application of SPD is attrac-
ponents associated primarily with the aerospace, archi- tive for the production of bulk NS materials. These
tectural and sports industries [41]. Expansion beyond materials can be tailored to exhibit both superior per-
this niche, into automotive and other high-volume formance and superior properties.
applications, is currently restricted by the slow strain 2. A primary advantage of SPD is the development of
rates involved in the forming process (typically 103 materials having good machinability, forgability,
s1 ) and the consequent long forming times (2030 and formability at potentially low processing cost.
min) associated with the production of each separate This makes these NS materials especially attractive
component. for use in specialized structural applications such
The introduction of bulk NS materials provides a as medical implants, biomedical devices, and high-
potential for overcoming the inherent limitations asso- performance bicycles. In the longer term, when
ciated with conventional coarse-grained superplastic continuous-processing methods are developed, it is
materials. Thus, it is now well established, both theo- reasonable to anticipate large-scale applications in
retically and experimentally [42,43], that the rate of ow the automotive and other elds.
within the superplastic regime varies inversely with the 3. Amorphous and NS materials also have unique phys-
grain size raised to a power that is close to 2. It is ical properties that are attractive for optical and elec-
anticipated, therefore, that a decrease in the grain size trical applications. The high strength of NS materials
by one order of magnitude will lead to an increase in the makes them ideal for micro-devices.
optimal superplastic forming rate by approximately two
orders of magnitude and thus, in eect, the total forming
time will be reduced to 2030 s. It can be shown also
that this reduction in grain size will lead to the advent of Acknowledgements
a superplastic forming capability which occurs at lower
temperatures than those generally associated with con- This work was supported by the US Department of
ventional superplastic ow. Early experimental results Energy IPP program (YTZ & TCL) and by the National
provided very clear demonstrations of the occurrence of Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-0243331
both high strain rate superplasticity [44] and low tem- (TGL).
830 Y.T. Zhu et al. / Scripta Materialia 51 (2004) 825830