Papers by Author: Arnaud Lens

Abstract: This paper describes an innovative way to characterize the strength of spot welds. A wedge test has been developed to generate interfacial failures in weldments and observe in-situ the crack propagation. An energy analysis quantifies the spot weld crack resistance. Finite Element calculations investigate the stresses and strains along the crack front. A comparison of the local loading state with experimentally observed crack fronts provides the necessary data for a failure criterion in spot weld fusion zones. The method is applied to spot welds of Advanced High Strength steels.

Abstract: This paper described new characterization methods and data to quantify the influence of solute atoms on grain boundary and sub-grain boundary mobilities in Al-Mn alloys with a view to their integration into recovery and recrystallization modelling. Detailed SEM measurements of grain boundary mobilities during recrystallization have been made by in-situ annealing experiments on cold deformed Al – 0.1 and 0.3wt.% Mn binary alloys. Stored energies are estimated from the sub-grain sizes and misorientations and the boundary velocities directly measured in the temperature range 200-450°C. It is shown that in many cases good agreement with the Cahn, Lücke, Stüwe model for solute drag is obtained, e.g. the activation energies are intermediate between those of boundary and volume solute diffusion. Some particular cases of rapid growth occur in Al-0.1%Mn indicating boundary breakaway from solute clouds. A complementary study of sub-grain boundary mobilities has started on the same alloys; in this case the average mobilities are estimated from FEG-SEM growth data for the average sub-grain size for temperatures in the range 150-300°C. The results are compared with some previous data on Al-Si and show similar rates.

Abstract: The crystallography of recrystallization nucleation has been investigated in channel-die deformed pure aluminium bicrystals with {100}<011>/{110}<001> and {100}<001>/{110}<001> orientations. The new grain orientations and misorientations were followed by systematic local orientation measurements using SEM and semi-automatic measurements in a TEM. In particular, orientation mapping combined with in-situ sample heating was used to investigate the formation and growth of new grains and their crystallographic orientation changes at very early stages of recrystallization. Grain boundary migration and ‘consumption’ of the as-deformed areas was always favoured along directions parallel to the traces of the {111} slip planes that had been most active during deformation. The orientations of the first formed nuclei were misoriented with respect to the orientations identified within the neighbouring deformed areas by α(<111>, <112>, or <100>)relations.

Abstract: The prior literature on abnormal grain coarsening (AGC) at low volume fractions (f) of stable second phase particles in high purity Al alloys is reviewed and reanalyzed in the light of developments in modeling particle inhibition of grain boundary migration. With the usual assumptions (i) of incoherent particles that retain their shape on contact with the grain boundaries and (ii) that all the grain boundaries are equally mobile, it appears impossible to account for process of AGC. Normal grain coarsening (NGC) is shown to be less inhibited by the particles than is AGC. This idea is explored using a new but simple model of particle inhibition by curvature removal. The curvature of the smallest grains is always larger than that of the larger grains. Two possible hypotheses to overcome this difficulty are proposed: First the possible change of shape of particles on slowly moving grain boundaries, of grains with near 14 neighbors should, after a small increment of NGC, promote AGC at low values of the volume fraction f. The second hypothesis involves the observed high density of immobile, low angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) found in recent experiments on high purity Al-Fe-Si alloys cast with very coarse grain sizes. These alloys undergo rapid AGC even at higher values of f (> 0.01). These LAGBs are expected to inhibit the shrinkage of many of the small grains, whose loss is the fundamental mechanism of NGC.

Abstract: The migration rates (V) of “random” high angle grain boundaries (HAGB) during annealing of a cold deformed (e=1.3) high purity Al-0.1wt% Mn alloy were determined using a combination of in-situ annealing and EBSD in the SEM at temperatures between 200 and 330°C. The SEM heating stage used for these experiments is described and results on the local recrystallization kinetics of the Al-Mn alloy are presented. For this, the local stored energies (P) were determined by subgrain size and misorientation analyses to give the boundary mobilities (M) through the standard V = M.P equation. The solute drag “force” was analysed with the atomistic model of Lücke and Stüwe (1971) for a “loaded” boundary and used to estimate the diffusion rates in the above temperature range. The activation energies for boundary migration were found to be consistent with those of solute atoms moving behind the grain boundary, i.e. intermediate between the values for bulk and boundary diffusion of Mn.