Papers by Keyword: Nano Grain Structure

Abstract: Mechanically milled austenitic stainless steel powder is applied to hot roll sintering (HRS) process. Microstructure and mechanical properties of the HRS material are investigated in detail. The mechanically milled powder has a bimodal structure with a severely deformed powder surface domain which is named as “Shell”, and an inner domain which is named as “Core”. The shell and core microstructure in the milled powder can be maintained even after sintering. As the result, microstructure of the HRS materials consists of a shell and core bimodal microstructure. Because severe plastic deformation mainly concentrates to the shell domain, a nano grain structure forms in the shell, while a coarse (meso) grain structure forms in the core. Such a nano / meso harmonic structured material demonstrates not only superior strength but also a large elongation. The mechanical properties of the HRS materials are strongly influenced by the nano / meso harmonic microstructure, such as grain size of the shell / core and the shell volume fraction. The shell has role of strength and the core has role of ductility. Thus, the nano / meso harmonic microstructure has been proved to be very effective to improve mechanical properties of structure materials.

Abstract: Grain refinement is well known to influence the mechanical properties of materials, especially the strength characteristics. The promising method for grain refinement is a SPD process and it produces the homogenized nano grain material which exhibits very high strength and limited ductility. Recently the grain refinement technique by the SPD in powder metallurgy (PM) field has received much attention. The SPD-PM process is one of new processes combining mechanical milling (MM) or alloying (MA), heat treatment and sintering processes. Microstructure of the SPD-PM materials is easily controlled by the MM condition, and hence we can intentionally make a heterogeneous microstructure. In the present study, commercially pure titanium, Ti-6Al-4V alloy and SUS316L stainless steel powders are applied to the SPD-PM process. These MM powders are sintered by Hot Roll Sintering (HRS) process. These SPD-PM materials demonstrate a heterogeneous microstructure and high strength and advanced plastic strain. The microstructure of materials consists of a shell and core hybrid microstructure, that is, a shell structure with nano grains and a core structure with work-hardened coarse grains. All of the materials fabricated by these processes demonstrate not only superior strength but also enough elongation. The mechanical properties are strongly influenced by the shell / core microstructure. The nano / meso hybrid microstructure by these processes has been proved to be very effective to improve mechanical properties.

Abstract: Mechanical Milling (MM) is a Severe Plastic Deformation - Powder Metallurgy (SPD-PM) process which enables to produce a nano grain structure. A BCC layer with a nano grain structure appeared in the vicinity of the MM powder surface. Conventional cold work at room temperature never induces a strain-induced-martensitic-transformation in the SUS310S stainless steel. Therefore, a BCC layer formation from austenitic matrix is a specific phase transformation, and is attributed to the rise of the grain boundary energy by the nano grain formation. The hardness of this surface layer has approximately 540Hv, while that of the inner area has about 290Hv. As the MM powder anneals at 333K for 300s, the hardness of surface and inner area decreases to approximately 470Hv and 280Hv, respectively. Result of such a large hardness decrease in the surface of MM powder after annealing at near the room temperature indicates an existence of a huge number of defects, such as vacancy and interstitial atom, by the SPD-PM Process.

Abstract: Specific features of mechanical behaviour of ultra fine grained iron subjected to friction treatment with nitriding (FN) were clarified by comparison with that induced by friction treatment (FT) with air. Mechanical parameters such as Young’s modulus, nanohardness, and plasticity characteristic δA were found to be of high sensitive both to the scale of grain structure and to iron modification by nitrogen. Young’s modulus tends to decrease and Hall-Petch low fails to describe correlation between grain structure and hardness for submicro-grained and nanocrystalline iron. Hall-Petch coefficient, ky, decreases as grain size decreases within submicro-grained and, then, nano grained sections and it takes even negative value in nano grained section modified by nitrogen. Parameter δA is found to be dependent on combination of hardness and Young’s modulus, resulting in its variation with decreasing the grain size. The presence of secondary nanocrystalline Fe4N phase fundamentally changes mechanical behaviour of nanocrystalline iron, leading to strengthening the grain boundaries and triple junctions.