Mechanism of Ductile-to-Brittle Transition in Body-Centered-Cubic Metals：A Brief Review
HAN Weizhong(), LU Yan, ZHANG Yuheng
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China
Cite this article:
HAN Weizhong, LU Yan, ZHANG Yuheng. Mechanism of Ductile-to-Brittle Transition in Body-Centered-Cubic Metals：A Brief Review. Acta Metall Sin, 2023, 59(3): 335-348.
Body-centered-cubic (bcc)-structured metals have excellent physical properties, such as high melting points, high strength and excellent creep resistance, radiation tolerance, and good compatibility with liquid metals, which are widely used in high-tech fields, such as nuclear reactors, satellites, aircraft, rockets, and engines. However, their low-temperature brittleness and ductile-to-brittle transition characteristics limit their applications. Therefore, a deep understanding of the ductile-to-brittle transition mechanism is of great significance for regulating the ductile-to-brittle transition behavior of bcc-structured metals. In this review, taking bcc-structured metals as an example, the history of the ductile-to-brittle transition investigations in bcc metals was retrospected, the main research progress on this topic was introduced, the newly developed methods to tune the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature of metals was discussed, and the key points to be focused on in the future was listed.
Fund: National Natural Science Foundation of China(51971170);National Natural Science Foundation of China(51922082);Programme of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities(BP0618008)
Fig.1 Different methods for measuring the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) (a) DBTT measured by Charpy test[56] (L is longitudinal, T is long transverse, and S is short transverse. The first letter (L or T) designates the direction normal to the crack plane, and the second letter (S) the expected direction of crack propagation) (b) DBTT measured by bending test[3] (Filled symbols represent fracture toughnesses (left axis-K), and open symbols represent stresses at failure, which are normalized by crack length (a) for compatibility with the fracture toughness scale (right axis-σf(a)) (c) DBTT measured by small-punch (SP) test (TSP)[34] (d) DBTT measured by nanoindentation[16]
Fig.2 The atomic core structures of the a' / 2[111] screw dislocation in body-centered cubic metals[61] (a'—lattice constant)
Fig.3 Double-kink assisted migration of screw dislocation under thermal activation[30] (Up—Peierls barrier, τg—time constant for generating a kink pair, τm—time constant for moving the kinks to the extent of the dislocation line, νs—screw dislocation velocity)
Fig.4 Determination of DBTT according to variation of ductile and brittle fracture probabilities with respect to the inverse of temperature[74]
Fig.5 Dislocation structures in rolled tungsten at different testing temperatures[34] ( b —Burgers vecter) (a) pre-existing dislocations before testing (b) below DBTT (c) at DBTT (d) above DBTT
Fig.6 Mechanism of the relative mobility of the screw versus edge dislocations controls the DBT in metals[16] (a) dislocation relative mobility determines the efficiency of dislocation source (TC—critical temperature, ve—edge dislocation velocity, αDBT—the α value at DBTT, α—velocity ratio of screw dislocation and edge dislocation, t0—time before dislocation bow out, t1—time after dislocation bow out) (b) relative mobility of screw versus edge dislocations with temperature for Cr, Al, W, and Fe (c) bowing out an edge dislocation to form a half loop (r—dislocation source radius) (d) bowing out the half loop if vs = 0 (x—distance moved by edge dislocation) (e) bowing out the half loop with side glide (vs > 0) (y—distance moved by screw dislocation, Aedge—region swept by the edge dislocation, Ascrew—region swept by the screw dislocation)
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