CAVITATION AND FRACTURE OF MECHANICALLY ALLOYED ALUMINUM AT HIGH HOMOLOGOUS TEMPERATURES

The tensile behaviour of mechanically alloyed (dispersion strengthened) IN90211 was characterized at strain rates between 0.0001 and 340 sec-1 at temperatures between 425 and 475 ° C, At strain rates above 0.1 sec-1, superplastic elongations were obtained (maximum elongation 525% at 475 ° C, 2.5sec-1. Large elongations were possible due to the lack of cavitation, even though the strain-rate sensitivity was lower (m ≈ 0.25) than usually found in superplasticity. Cavitation was precluded by the morphology of the platelet-shaped grains in which low-angle subgrain boundaries were predominantly perpendicular to the tensile axis. Grain-boundary sliding was observed along high-angle grain boundaries which were generally parallel to the tensile axis. At the high homologous testing temperatures (0.76 to 0.81), concurrent grain-boundary sliding and lattice slip was made possible by the rapid lattice diffusivity and easy climb of lattice dislocations over dispersions in the matrix and grain boundaries. © 1990 Chapman and Hall Ltd.