A TEM study of pure tantalum and tantalum-tungsten alloys explosively shocked at a peak pressure of 30 GPa (strain rate: ∼1 x 104 sec-1) is presented. While no ω (hexagonal) phase was found in shock-recovered pure Ta and Ta-5W that contain mainly a low-energy cellular dislocation structure, shock-induced ω phase was found to form in Ta-10W that contains evenly distributed dislocations with a stored dislocation density higher than 1 x 1012 cm-2. The TEM results clearly reveal that shock-induced α (bcc) → ω (hexagonal) shear transformation occurs when dynamic recovery reactions which lead the formation low-energy cellular dislocation structure become largely suppressed in Ta-10W shocked under dynamic (i.e., high strain-rate and high-pressure) conditions. A novel dislocation-based mechanism is proposed to rationalize the transition of dislocation glide to twinning and/or shear transformation in shock-deformed tantalum. Twinning and/or shear transformation take place as an alternative deformation mechanism to accommodate high-strain-rate straining when the shear stress required for dislocation multiplication exceeds the threshold shear stresses for twinning and/or shear transformation.

Mono-crystalline elastic constants of equiatomic quinary Cr-Mn-Fe-Co-Ni high entropy alloy with the fcc structure have experimentally been determined by a resonance ultrasound spectroscopy at room temperature. The values of the bulk modulus of the high entropy alloy experimentally determined are similar to other conventional fcc metals when the values are normalized by the melting points. This indicates that the entropy change at melting is similar to that of conventional metals. The values of Pough’s index and the Cauchy pressure are determined as 1.79 and -11.6 GPa, respectively. When the ductility of the alloy is judged from the indices, the ductility of the high entropy alloy is limited. In order to explain the negative Cauchy pressure of the high entropy alloy, it is required to assume that relatively strong directional interatomic bondings like intermetallic compounds exist in the alloy though the crystal is disordered solid solution.

Amorphous ferromagnetic alloy with the composition Fe56Co24Nb4B13Si2Cu1 was obtained by rapid quenching from the melt. Samples cut from the ribbons were annealed at 450, 550, 650 and 750 °C in a vacuum furnace. 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy was used to identify the phases formed based on the refined values of the hyperfine parameters. The as-quenched specimen was analyzed with a hyperfine magnetic field distribution and corresponded to an in-plane orientation of the magnetic moment directions. The sample annealed at 450 °C was found to be in a nanocrystalline state due to observation of the (FeCo)-Si alloy with the DO3 structure. The balance of the composition was represented by a metalloid-enriched amorphous grain boundary phase. In contradistinction to this, the samples annealed at 550-750 °C were totally crystallized and the new phases formed were α-(FeCo), (FeCo)2(BSi) and (FeCo)3(BSi). These findings suggest that nanocrystallization is obtained only at select processing temperatures. A new set of Mössbauer spectra was obtained by recording simultaneously the intensity transmitted by a sandwich of the sample with the stainless steel etalon, based on the dual absorber method recently introduced by us. The values of the recoilless fraction can be derived from the relative spectral areas. The f factor value dropped from 0.6 to 0.37 for the sample annealed at 450 °C, consistent with the onset of nanocrystallization in the system. For the completely crystallized specimens, the f factor maintained values close to 0.5. This indicates that the presence of quenched-in stresses may play a role in the ability of samples to undergo recoilless emission and absorption of gamma rays.

Ni-Zr alloy thin films were processed by DC magnetron sputtering of high purity Ni and Zr targets in ultrahigh vacuum at ambient temperature, with the substrate being subjected to either 0 V or -60 V bias. Some of the as-deposited films were annealed in vacuum at 700°C for 1 h. Surface profilometer and atomic force microscope were used to measure the film thickness and surface roughness, respectively. X-ray diffraction and cross-sectional TEM analysis have shown dispersion of nano-sized Ni3Zr dispersed in nanocrystalline Ni matrix. Nano-indentation and scratch tests conducted at 2 mN load have shown variation of hardness, Young′s modulus, scratch resistance, and coefficient of friction with substrate bias and annealing due to changes in grain size and surface roughness.

The ground state properties of pure Ti with α, β and ω structures and of the binary Ti-xV(x=5‒30) at.% alloys with β and ω structures were calculated by first-principles method based on density functional theory, and subsequently the energy landscape of the displacive phase transition of β to ω were determined. The calculated results show that the energy barrier appears for the displacive phase transition of β to ω in Ti-(15‒30) at.% V alloys at 300 K, but does not at 0 K. The energy barriers increase monotonously with increase of the temperature and the V content. These results can explain the formation of athermal ω phase and shear-assisted β to ω transition observed in as-quenched Ti-V base alloys.

Two sets of rectangle samples with different length/width ratios were prepared and subjected to uniaxial compression in the normal direction of rolled pure titanium. Results from Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) show that the produced {11 $\bar 2$ 2} twins in the two sets of samples exhibit different orientations, which is related to the variant selection of twinning behaviors with respect to the length/width ratios of the samples. The variant selection criterion is investigated in terms of the Schmid factors and contribution of the active twins to external strain, which indicates that the variants resulting in the elongation along the longer direction of the sample were unfavorable.