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Fatigue and fracture of nanostructured metals and alloys

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Abstract

Metals and alloys with nanoscale structural features (such as grain size or twin thickness <100 nm) exhibit exceptional strength and unusual deformation mechanisms. But, the suppressed dislocation slip, grain-boundary instability, and limited strain hardening in these nanostructured metals can be detrimental to fatigue and fracture properties. In this article, recent advances in understanding the structural origins of fatigue and fracture resistance of nanocrystalline and nanotwinned metals and alloys are reviewed. Based on this understanding, microstructural engineering strategies, such as gradient grain size, controlled boundary mobility, or hierarchical nanotwins, alter the deformation modes and provide promising paths to develop nanostructured materials with improved fatigue and fracture properties.

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Acknowledgments

L.L. acknowledges financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Grant Nos. U1608257 and 51931010), the Key Research Program of Frontier Science and International partnership program (Grant No. GJHZ2029), CAS, and LiaoNing Revitalization Talents Program (Grant No. XLYC1802026). Q.P. acknowledges support by NSFC (Grant Nos. 51601196, 52071321) and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (Grant No. 2019196). B.L.B. and K.H. were supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Science, Materials Science and Engineering Division. B.L.B. and K.H. would like to acknowledge D. Bufford for his work in obtaining Figure 1, C. Kunka for compiling data for Figure 2, and acknowledge use of the microscopy facilities at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies for this work. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the US DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract No. DE-NA-0003525. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the US DOE or the United States Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China

    Lei Lu & Qingsong Pan

  2. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, USA

    Khalid Hattar & Brad L. Boyce

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  1. Lei Lu
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  2. Qingsong Pan
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  3. Khalid Hattar
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Correspondence to Lei Lu or Brad L. Boyce.

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Lu, L., Pan, Q., Hattar, K. et al. Fatigue and fracture of nanostructured metals and alloys. MRS Bulletin 46, 258–264 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-021-00054-y

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