Although hydrogen embrittlement has been observed and extensively studied in a wide variety of metals and alloys, there still exist controversies over the underlying mechanisms and a fundamental understanding of hydrogen embrittlement in nanostructures is almost non-existent. Here we use metallic nanowires (NWs) as a platform to study hydrogen embrittlement in nanostructures where deformation and failure are dominated by dislocation nucleation. Based on quantitative in-situ transmission electron microscopy nanomechanical testing and molecular dynamics simulations, we report enhanced yield strength and a transition in failure mechanism from distributed plasticity to localized necking in penta-twinned Ag NWs due to the presence of surface-adsorbed hydrogen. In-situ stress relaxation experiments and simulations reveal that the observed embrittlement in metallic nanowires is governed by the hydrogen-induced suppression of dislocation nucleation at the free surface of NWs.
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Abstract Nanotwinned materials have been widely studied as a promising class of nanostructured materials that exhibit an exceptional combination of high strength, good ductility, large fracture toughness, remarkable fatigue resistance, and creep stability. Recently, an apparent controversy has emerged with respect to how the strength of nanotwinned materials varies as the twin thickness is reduced. While a transition from hardening to softening was observed in nanotwinned Cu when the twin thickness is reduced below a critical value, continuous hardening was reported in nanotwinned ceramics and nanotwinned diamond. Here, by conducting atomistic simulations and developing a theoretical modeling of nanotwinned Pd and Cu systems, we discovered that there exists a softening temperature, below which the material hardens continuously as the twin thickness is reduced (as in nanotwinned ceramics and diamond), while above which the strength first increases and then decreases, exhibiting a maximum strength and a hardening to softening transition at a critical twin thickness (as in nanotwinned Cu). This important phenomenon has been attributed to a transition from source- to stress-controlled plasticity below the softening temperature, and suggests that different hardening behaviors may exist even in the same nanotwinned material depending on the temperature and that at a given temperature, different materials could exhibit different hardening behaviors depending on their softening temperature.
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Traditionally, precipitates in a material are thought to serve as obstacles to dislocation glide and cause hardening of the material. This conventional wisdom, however, fails to explain recent discoveries of ultrahigh-strength and large-ductility materials with a high density of nanoscale precipitates, as obstacles to dislocation glide often lead to high stress concentration and even microcracks, a cause of progressive strain localization and the origin of the strength–ductility conflict. Here we reveal that nanoprecipitates provide a unique type of sustainable dislocation sources at sufficiently high stress, and that a dense dispersion of nanoprecipitates simultaneously serve as dislocation sources and obstacles, leading to a sustainable and self-hardening deformation mechanism for enhanced ductility and high strength. The condition to achieve sustainable dislocation nucleation from a nanoprecipitate is governed by the lattice mismatch between the precipitate and matrix, with stress comparable to the recently reported high strength in metals with large amount of nanoscale precipitates. It is also shown that the combination of Orowan’s precipitate hardening model and our critical condition for dislocation nucleation at a nanoprecipitate immediately provides a criterion to select precipitate size and spacing in material design. The findings reported here thus may help establish a foundation for strength–ductility optimization through densely dispersed nanoprecipitates in multiple-element alloy systems.more » « less