Damage development during superplasticity of light alloys

Superplastic forming (SPF) of metallic alloys allows the production of components with particularly complex shapes since in this regime, due to the predominance of grain boundary sliding (GBS), the material exhibits a high plastic stability. However, in many light alloys (i.e., Al or Mg alloys), superplastic deformation induces damage leading to premature fracture. Despite extensive work in the past, the mechanisms of damage induced by superplastic deformation remain under debate. In particular due to the important contribution of GBS, voids with very irregular shapes frequently develop, resulting in a difficulty to obtain reliable experimental data from conventional quantitative metallography. It is the reason why the use of X-ray microtomography, providing 3D images of material bulk, is a particularly fruitful technique to investigate damage processes in superplastic materials. Thanks to this technique, damage development during superplastic deformation of Al and Mg alloys is investigated and the three main steps of damage development (nucleation, growth, and coalescence) are discussed.