Department of Materials Science and Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology 3.

14 Physical Metallurgy Fall 2003 Solutions to Exam II

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Problem #1: Steel Microstructures Oh no! You dropped your steel specimens and cant remember which is which. You remember that the three steel grades are 1030, 1045, and 1080, but thats all. With nothing at your disposal but optical metallography facilities and furnaces (and the Fe-C phase diagram attached to the test), you quickly devise a scheme to save your job. Vowing to carefully label the specimens next time, you put all three in the oven to austenitize them for an hour. Part A: What temperatures and times are acceptable for the austenitization and why? The minimum temperature that would work is about 820C, where the 1030 steel will be in the austenite phase (the other two steels have lower austenitization temperatures). The maximum temperature would be around 1400C where 1080 would no longer be in the austenite phase. After austenitizing you turn off the furnace and allow the specimens to cool very slowly. You obtain the following microstructures:

(a) Part B:

(b)

(c)

Identify which steel is which on the basis of the microstructures, and write the logic of your thought process that led to your conclusions. (a) 1080: This is closest to the eutectoid composition and the structure is almost entirely pearlite. (b) 1030: This is furthest from the eutectoid composition and has the least carbon. There will be lots of -phase present (white regions). (c) 1045: This phase has less hypoeutectoid -phase than the 1030. More carbon is present (black regions) than in (b).

Problem #2: Fracture Toughness and Fatigue in Ceramics Part A: In ceramics, there is basically no plastic deformation around crack tips, so toughness is usually rather low because surface creation is the only means of dissipating strain energy. One approach to fix this problem is to create ceramic-matrix composites with reinforcements that can bridge the cracks:

Describe how this approach could increase the toughness of ceramics. The fibers would help to dissipate the energy through some or all of the following methods: stretching of fibers, sliding of interfaces, breaking of fibers, deflecting the crack. Part B: Ceramic materials usually dont exhibit fatigue behavior like metals, where cracks propagate progressively in short bursts across the material. On the basis of what you know about the mechanism of fatigue crack growth in metals, explain why fatigue is unusual in ceramics. In metals, fatigue fracture arises as slip bands and surface flaws form during cyclic loading. These surface flaws are incipient cracks. These cracks are blunted by work hardening, until the stress is too high and the crack propagates. A new area is then work hardened, the crack is blunted, and so on. Since plasticity is required in order to blunt the crack tip, and ceramics have almost no plastic deformation, they will not exhibit fatigue in the same sense. Part C: By making ceramic composites as in part A, we make ceramics tougher (like metals). By the same token, can we then also expect to see fatigue behavior (like metals) in these composites? Why or why not? You could have answered yes or no here. YES: Sliding or fatigue of the fibers (if they are metallic) behind the crack tip is possible, leading to fatigue-type behavior. NO: Although more energy is dissipated, this still does not allow for the blunting/sharpening mechanism of fatigue crack propagation.

Problem 3: Microstructure Design Down the road, as a wizened graduate student, you are helping a nave undergrad to improve the properties of a binary alloy system with the following (partial) phase diagram: Cb T Ca Cb2 Your undergrad has produced a whole host of fascinating microstructures through compositional control and slow cooling of the alloy, trying to generate the highest strength possible in this system. He has been focusing on the high-B side of the diagram, because is the higher strength phase.

A Part A:

Your young assistant is very disappointed that despite trying a number of compositions, he has not made an alloy of higher strength than the pure component B ( phase). Explain why not. Slow cooling produces coarse microstructures (features > 1 m). When the structure is on that scale, the rule of mixtures applies. Since is the high strength side, having anything less that 100% will result in a lower strength. Part B: Lay out a new strategy to make a high strength alloy in this system. Specify the composition and processing you would use; add labels to the diagram above if necessary. While there are surely other ways, two possible methods are: 1. At the composition Cb, heat the system until its completely in the -phase. Quench so as to produce a solid solution of in . Since solid solution strengthening doesnt ever decrease the strength, this would create a stronger material than pure . At Cb2, you can quench from the single-phase field with no fear of proeutectoid decomposition, guaranteeing a solid solution. 2. At the composition Ca, heat the system to the eutectoid composition where there is rather high solubility of B in the -phase. Quench and heat-treat the alloy to produce fine precipitates in an matrix.

Problem #4: Structure and Strength of Martensite Through alloying additions, you have created a new Fe-C-based alloy never before seen. The alloy can be quenched to a Martensitic state quite readily, but you are shocked to discover that in this state the alloy is rather weak. Upon further examination, you find that this is no ordinary BCT Martensite, but rather has a nearly ideal FCC structure. Describe the strengthening mechanisms that normally operate in BCT Fe-C Martensite, and on this basis, explain why the new FCC Martensite is not so strong. BCT Martensite is strengthened by three mechanisms: 1. BCT has few slip systems 2. Carbon atoms sit in asymmetrical tetragonal interstitial sites that promote solid-solution strengthening 3. Large Bain strain is produced during the FCC BCT Martensitic transformation, giving rise to lots of work hardening in and around the M phase. If your Martensite phase is FCC, the strength will be reduced as each of the above mechanisms is less effective in FCC: 1. FCC has lots of slip systems in general a lower stress is necessary to cause plastic deformation on the first slip system 2. The interstitial sites in FCC are spherically symmetric, reducing the solute-dislocation interactions, and thereby reducing the effectiveness of solid solution strengthening. 3. The strain of transformation would only involve, at most, a volume change, not a shape change. It seems reasonable that this might give lower work hardening than the FCC-BCT transformation.

Problem #5: Structural Evolution and Strengthening Mechanisms You are working with a multi-component alloy that derives strength from three sources: (1) a fine grain size (2) solid solution strengthening from a fine interstitial (3) a precipitated dispersion of ~25 nm intermetallic particles Your specimen was just deformed past the upper yield point, so that the dislocations have broken away from their solute atmospheres. Describe the three major processes of structural evolution that take place in the alloy when you anneal it, and explain how these changes affect the strengthening gained from (1), (2), and (3) above. Include in your description the time laws of each process. 1. The grains will grow according to d t1/2. As the grains get bigger, the Hall-Petch relationship tells us that the strength will decrease. This is due to the fact that there are fewer grain boundaries to create dislocation pile-ups. 2. Strain aging will occur according to t2/3. Solutes will diffuse from the compressive regions around dislocations and solute pinning will occur. 3. Precipitates will coarsen as r t1/3. Since the precipitates have r ~ 25 nm, they are above the cutting to bowing transition, such that any increase in radius will result in a lower strength.

Problem #6: Fracture Mechanisms Pure iron undergoes a phase transformation from BCC to FCC at ~910 C, which is about 65% of the melting temperature (1183/1811 in Kelvin). The phase transformation introduces discontinuities in the properties of iron, for example, in the deformation and fracture mechanisms. Using your knowledge of fracture mechanisms in polycrystalline FCC and BCC metals, draw a schematic fracture mechanism map for pure iron, keeping in mind the phase transformation (which occurs at the dashed line)

BCC

FCC

Cleavage II Cleavage III Stress microvoiding (ductile)

Cleavage I

rupture

T/Tm There should actually also be a discontinuity in the maximum strength at the transformation, but this is a subtle point.

Problem #7: TTT Diagrams and Strengthening For a eutectoid composition steel, the TTT diagram is shown schematically below (reproduced twice for clarity).

T (2) (3)

(1)

(1) (2) (3) Log time Log time

(A) Part A:

(B)

Refer to diagram A above, and consider the three temperature histories shown. If you are trying to design a steel that best takes advantage of dislocation interactions with a second phase (i.e., strength controlled by bowing), which path is best and why? Path (3) will lead to the finest pearlite in the sub-m range; small enough to interact directly with dislocations. For the boxing mechanism, strength increases with finer size, so the finest possible pearlite is desirable. Part B: Refer to diagram B above, and consider the three temperature histories shown. If you are trying to produce a microstructure that derives strength through load transfer without being brittle, which path is best and why? For your microstructure to not be brittle, you cant have too much Martensite. Path (1) will be all Martensite and is therefore no good. Either path (2) or (3) would be OK.