Abstract: Nb-rich nanoprecipitates in the matrix of an annealed commercial NiTiNb alloy are investigated by scanning and transmission electron microscopy, including slice-and-view and chemical analysis. The precipitates have a diameter of around 100 nm, are faceted and have a cube-on-cube relation with the B2 matrix. In situ TEM cooling shows that the martensitic transformation is hampered by the presence of these precipitates. The latter could explain the increase in hysteresis when compared with the binary system.

Abstract: Homogenized Ni39.6Mn47.5T12.9 material was investigated by different electron microscopy techniques. Apart from the martensite precursor distortions typical for B2 phase alloys undergoing a thermoelastic martensitic transformation upon cooling, coherent dodecahedron-shaped precipitates with sizes between 20 and 100 nm and faceted by lozenge shapes of {110}-type planes are observed. Selected-area and microdiffraction patterns reveal an overall unit cell with a size of 3 x 3 x 3 units of the bcc lattice of the matrix and a body-centred symmetry without screw axes. Finally a ternary gamma-brass-type atomic structure of space group 14(3) over bar m is suggested for these precipitates in accordance with the obtained symmetry constraints, the energy-dispersive X-ray measurements and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images. This is the first time this type of structure is found in an alloy completely consisting of transition-metal elements.

Abstract: While the microstructure of a metal is well-known to affect its equilibrium hydrogen uptake and therefore the hydriding thermodynamics, microstructural effects on the hydriding kinetics are much less documented. Moreover, for thin film systems, such microstructural effects are difficult to separate from the internal stress effect, since most defects generate internal stresses. Such a decoupling has been achieved in this paper for nanocrystalline Pd thin film model systems through the use of a high-resolution, in-situ curvature measurement set-up during Pd deposition, annealing and hydriding. This set-up allowed producing Pd thin films with similar internal stress levels but significantly different microstructures. This was evidenced from detailed defect statistics obtained by transmission electron microscopy, which showed that the densities of grain boundaries, dislocations and twin boundaries have all been lowered by annealing. The same set-up was then used to study the hydriding equilibrium and kinetic behaviour of the resulting films at room temperature. A full quantitative analysis of their hydriding cycles showed that the rate constants of both the adsorption- and absorption-limited kinetic regimes were strongly affected by microstructure. Defect engineering was thereby shown to increase the rate constants for hydrogen adsorption and absorption in Pd by a factor 40 and 30, respectively. Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: The SiC/Al composites have been fabricated by a vacuum hot pressing (VHP) process in order to study the effect of interface evolution on the global thermal conductivity (TC). By optimizing the VHP parameters of sintering temperature and time, the three different kinds of SiC/Al interface configurations, that is, non-bonded, diffusion-bonded, and reaction-bonded interfaces, are formed and identified by measurement of relative density, X-ray diffraction, scanning and (high-resolution) transmission electron microscopy. The VHPed composite sintered at 655 °C for 60 min is fully dense and presents a tightly-adhered and clean SiC/Al interface at the nanoscale, the ideal diffusion-bonded interface being the most favorable for minimizing interfacial thermal resistance, which in turn results in the highest TC of around 270 W/mK.

Abstract: The influence of the deposition rate on the formation of growth twins in nanocrystalline Pd films deposited by electron beam evaporation is investigated using transmission electron microscopy. Statistical measurements prove that twin boundary (TB) density and volume fraction of grains containing twins increase with increasing deposition rate. A clear increase of the dislocation density was observed for the highest deposition rate of 5 Å/s, caused by the increase of the internal stress building up during deposition. Based on crystallographic orientation indexation using transmission electron microscopy, it can be concluded that a {111} crystallographic texture increases with increasing deposition rate even though the {101} crystallographic texture remains dominant. Most of the TBs are fully coherent without any residual dislocations. However, for the highest deposition rate (5 Å/s), the coherency of the TBs decreases significantly as a result of the interaction of lattice dislocations emitted during deposition with the growth TBs. The analysis of the grain boundary character of different Pd films shows that an increasing fraction of high angle grain boundaries with misorientation angles around 5565° leads to a higher potential for twin formation.

Abstract: A Ti-50.8at.%Ni wire produced using a co-drawing method and a commercial Ti-50.8at.%Ni wire were annealed at different temperatures between 450°C and 700°C. Grains with diameter less than 100nm were revealed by transmission electron microscopy for both wires before annealing treatment. However, the microstructural heterogeneity of the co-drawn wire is more obvious than that of the commercial wire. Multi-stage martensitic transformation was observed in the co-drawn wire, compared with the one-stage A↔M transformation in the commercial wire after annealing at 600°C for 30min. The differences of total elongation, plateau strain and pseudoelastic recoverable strain between the commercial wire and the co-drawn wire were also observed. The differences of the transformation behavior and mechanical properties between the commercial wire and the co-drawn wire are attributed to the microstructural difference between these two wires.

Abstract: The alloy Ti6Al4V is known to be prone to the formation of adiabatic shear bands when dynamically loaded in shear. This causes a catastrophic decrease of the load carrying capacity and is usually followed by fracture. Although, the main mechanism is recognized to be the competition between strain hardening and thermal softening, a detailed understanding of the role of microstructural plasticity mechanisms and macroscopic loading conditions does not exist yet. To study strain localization and shear fracture, different high strain rate shear tests have been carried out: compression of hat-shaped specimens, torsion of thin walled tubular specimens and in-plane shear tests. The value of the three techniques in studying shear localization is evaluated. Post-mortem analysis of the fracture surface and the materials' microstructure is performed with optical and electron microscopy. In all cases a ductile fracture is observed. SEM and TEM techniques are used to study the local microstructure and composition in the shear band and as such the driving mechanism for the ASB formation. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICM11

Abstract: This work addresses the dissolution corrosion behaviour of 316L austenitic stainless steels. For this purpose, solution-annealed and cold-deformed 316L steels were simultaneously exposed to oxygen-poor (<10-8 mass%) static liquid lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) for 253e3282 h at 500 °C. Corrosion was consistently more severe for the cold-drawn steels than the solution-annealed steel, indicating the importance of the steel thermomechanical state. The thickness of the dissolution-affected zone was nonuniform, and sites of locally-enhanced dissolution were occasionally observed. The progress of LBE dissolution attack was promoted by the interplay of certain steel microstructural features (grain boundaries, deformation twin laths, precipitates) with the dissolution corrosion process. The identified dissolution mechanisms were selective leaching leading to steel ferritization, and non-selective leaching; the latter was mainly observed in the solution-annealed steel. The maximum corrosion rate decreased with exposure time and was found to be inversely proportional to the depth of dissolution attack.