SUPERPLASTICITY & SUPERPLASTIC MATERIALS

Presented By:1. ABHINAW KHANDELWAL (BT08MME001) 2. KUSHAL SAKET (BT08MME030)

INTRODUCTION
When a polycrystalline material is pulled in tension, it invariably breaks after pulling out to a relatively small strain. However, under some limited experimental conditions the material may pull out to exhibit a very large neck free elongation prior to failure. These high tensile elongations, often exceeding 1000%, are examples of the occurrence of superplasticity. It is now well established that two basic requirements must be fulfilled in order to achieve superplastic flow. First, superplasticity requires a very small grain size, typically smaller than 10 lm. Second, superplasticity is a diffusion-controlled process operating within the regime of high temperature deformation and therefore it requires a relatively high testing temperature typically at or above 0.5 Tm, where Tm is the absolute melting temperature of the material. In practice, these two requirements tend to be incompatible because grain growth occurs at elevated temperatures in pure metals and solid solution alloys. This means in practice that superplastic metals are generally either two-phase or they contain a fine dispersion of a second phase to inhibit grain growth. Superplasticity forms the underlying basis for the commercial superplastic forming (SPF) industry in which complex shapes and curved parts are formed from superplastic sheet metals which currently processes thousands of tons of metallic parts for a wide range of industries with special emphasis on the aerospace and automotive sectors but with numerous applications in architecture and consumer products.

The definition of superplasticity

Superplasticity is the ability of a polycrystalline material to exhibit, in a generally isotropic manner, very high elongations prior to failure. Nevertheless, the definition does not incorporate any specific minimum tensile elongation that is a necessary prerequisite in order to achieve superplastic flow in metals. In order to avoid interpreting creep controlled by viscous glide as true superplastic behaviour, it is necessary to adapt the earlier definition of superplasticity and to introduce additional experimental requirements that will unambiguously identify superplastic flow. The two most appropriate additional parameters are the measured elongations to failure and the values of the strain rate sensitivity. Making use of these two requirements, it is now proposed that superplastic flow is most readily defined in the following form: Superplasticity is the ability of a polycrystalline material to exhibit, in a generally isotropic manner, very high elongations prior to failure. The measured elongations in superplasticity are generally at least400% and the measured strain rate sensitivities are close to 0.5.

The historic developments in superplasticity

Historical considerations suggest the ability to achieve superplastic-like flow in metals was probably understood by artisans in ancient times: examples include the use of arsenic bronzes in Turkey in the early Bronze Age, the development of Damascus steels from 300 BC to the late nineteenth century and the introduction of Wootzsteels in ancient India. Nevertheless, it was only in the twentieth century that the first scientific reports began to appear documenting the potential for achieving relatively high tensile elongations in metals.The first unambiguous report of superplasticity may be traced to the work of Pearson which was published exactly 75 years ago in 1934. In this latter work, Pearson achieved a remarkable tensile elongation of 1950% in the PbSn eutectic alloy. Additional developments in the Soviet Union included the publication of the first book on superplasticity by Presnyakov , first published in the Russian language in 1969 and the founding in 1985 of the Institute of Metals Superplasticity Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the city of Ufa in the western Urals region of Russia. This institute was, and remains, the only institute in the world devoted exclusively to research in the field of superplasticity. The following sections review some of these more important developments which have led to an overall understanding of the superplastic phenomenon:

-The occurrence of superplasticity in ceramics

It is well known that ceramic materials are inherently brittle and therefore it is reasonable to anticipate they will not exhibit superplastic elongations. Nevertheless, tensile elongations of [100% were reported for a 3 mol% yttriastabilized polycrystalline tetragonal zircona termed 3YTZP. Although these early reports documented only relatively modest elongations by comparison with superplastic metals, later investigations demonstrated the ability to achieve much larger elongations to failure. Examples of these high tensile elongations include 1050% without failure at a strain rate of 0.4 s-1 in a ZrO2Al2O3-spinel composite and 1038% in a polycrystalline tetragonal zirconia doped with 5 wt% silica when testing at 1673K at a strain rate of 1.3 9 10-4 s-1. Later experiments on the ZrO2Al2O3-spinel composite gave a remarkable tensile elongation of 2510% when testing at 1923 K at a strain rate of 8.5 9 10-2 s-1. The flow properties in a ceramic are interpreted, as in metals, in terms of a model of grain boundary sliding accommodated by intragranular dislocation slip.

-The significance of cavitations in superplasticity

Although early experimental evidence suggested that grain boundary sliding plays a major role in superplastic flow, there was a general consensus that the occurrence of exceptionally high elongations to failure was indicative of an absence of the development of any internal cavities. Thus, an early review of superplasticity noted explicitly that void formation was not observed in superplastic metals. Nevertheless, careful experiments on a commercial Zn-22%Al eutectoid alloy, containing 190 ppm of impurities confirmed the importance of cavitations in materials undergoing superplastic flow even under conditions where the tensile samples exhibit exceptionally high elongations.

The growth of cavities under conditions of high temperature creep occurs either through absorbing vacancies in diffusion growth or by plastic flow in the surrounding matrix in plasticity-controlled growth. However, the situation changes for superplastic materials because the grain size is exceptionally small and this means the cavity size may exceed the grain size so that several boundaries impinge upon a single cavity. This then leads to enhanced vacancy diffusion along these multiple boundary paths, thereby giving the process of superplastic diffusion growth. The development of internal cavitations in superplastic metals presents a potential limitation on the use of these materials for superplastic forming operations. However, it is quantitatively possible to measure the extent of any internal cavitations using a non-destructive procedure based on photo-acoustics.

General principles of high temperature flow including superplasticity

The rate of superplastic flow is controlled by the rate of diffusion and accordingly the flow process occurs within the general regime of high temperature creep. For flow processes at elevated temperatures, it is now well established that the steady-state strain rate, ; may be expressed by a relationship of the form:

=C

( ) ( ) D exp (

where, C = Dimensionless constant, incorporating all structural parameters except grain size G = Shear modulus (N/mm); (MPa) b = Burgers vector (m) k = Boltzmann constant (1.381 x 10-23 J/ K) T = Absolute temperature (K) D = Average grain size (m) P = Dimensionless exponent = Applied stress (N/mm); (MPa) n = Dimensionless stress exponent D = Independent coefficient of diffusion (m/ s) Q = Activation energy of creep process (kJ/ mol) R = Gas constant (8.314 J/ mol x K)

Deformation mechanisms during superplastic forming

Figure below lists the deformation mechanisms during superplastic forming. In principle, the same mechanisms are valid for both superplastic forming and classical creep of metals. These include grain boundary sliding and dislocation movement as well as dynamic recovery and recrystallisation processes. The individual mechanisms will be explained in the following overheads.
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Deformation Mechanisms of Superplasticity

Grain boundary gliding as basic mechanism + Dislocation movement + Diffusion creep at grain boundaries + Dynamical recovery processes + Recrystallisation processes

Grain boundary gliding

Figure below defines the term grain boundary gliding. The characteristics for superplastic forming have been experimentally determined for various grain boundary gliding situations. These include the relative movement of neighbouring grains along the common grain boundary, the rotation of neighbouring grains and the exchange mechanism of neighbouring crystals. The individual mechanisms will be explained, based on models, in the following overheads.

Grain Boundary Gliding

Relative movement of neighboring grains along the common grain boundary + Rotation of neighboring grains + Exchange of neighboring grains

Gliding of dislocations
Gliding of dislocations is depicted schematically in figure below. A group of grains with a favourable orientation moves as a block relative to its neighbours. The stress concentration in the grain in which the slip plane exists and acts as a slip barrier, produces new dislocations which once again cause a slip through the grain, stopping at the next grain boundary and leading to a dislocation pile-up. The stress rise then causes slip to initiate and proceed through the blocking grain. Furthermore, the mobility of dislocations increases by the mechanism of climb.

Exchange mechanism
Figure below illustrates the exchange mechanism of grains in superplastic forming processes with the aid of a deformed layer of soap bubbles. The exchange between neighbors can be divided into two groups. In the permutation model, the grains in a layer rearrange themselves without any increase in the layer surface area. In the displacement model, a grain from the neighborhood is inserted between the individual grains, so that the surface area of the layer is increased. The permutation model is based on observations of the behavior of soap bubbles between two glass surfaces. With increasing deformation, the soap bubbles exchange their neighbors

Mechanism of creep
The mechanism of creep by stress induced, oriented diffusion is illustrated in figure below. Grain boundaries subjected to a tensile stress , require an energy which is lower by the amount (= atomic volume), for vacancy formation. Consequently, the concentration of vacancies is higher than in regions subjected to a compressive stress. In compression stress regions, the energy for vacancy formation is increased by the same amount.

The resulting gradient of the vacancy concentration causes an oriented movement of the defects. At the same time, the compressed zone acts as an atom donator or vacancy acceptor, so that a mass movement occurs in the opposite direction to the vacancy movement. The increase of material in the tensile force direction is shown as a hatched area. This leads to an elongation of the grain in the tensile direction and a narrowing in the plane normal to the tensile axis. The combined result leads to an elongation of the polycrystalline specimen in the tensile stress direction.

Some applications of superplastic materials

Superplastic Sheet Shaped Components
Figure below gives some examples of superplastically formed aluminium parts of the company Superform Metals Ltd., England. The complex components shown are all fabricated in a low series production. Examples of superplastically formed parts are side panels of aeroplanes, facade elements, heat exchangers, gear boxes, fuel tanks, reflectors etc.

Superplastically formed reflectors

The superplastically formed reflector shown in Figure 3801.01.01 has very large differences in drawing depths, making it difficult to produce the part with conventional sheet forming methods. Furthermore, the part has reentrant form segments at the circumference and a convex base, which can only be produced with additional sets of tooling with standard sheet forming processes.

 Superplastically formed faade parts

Figure below shows superplastically formed building facade parts with a design which makes it extremely difficult to produce using conventional fabrication methods. The part on the left has two tilted surfaces ending in transverse ribs. A complicated material flow occurs at the transition zone. The extreme stretch forming process occurring here causes problems during cold forming. The high ribs prevent or hinder the transverse flow of material, which is further complicated by the sharp radii.

 Superplastically formed fuel tank

Large differences in drawing depth, reentrant corners and slanting body forms lead to problems during manufacturing with cold forming methods. The superplastically formed tank shown in Figure below is a good example of very complex sheet shaped parts.

Future opportunities in superplasticity

In traditional practice, superplastic materials are prepared by thermo-mechanical processing and the alloys typically have grain sizes of 3 to 5 m.Very recent developments have demonstrated the potential for producing bulk fully-dense metals with grain sizes that are much smaller than those used in conventional superplastic testing. These new developments are based on the processing of metals through the application of severe plastic deformation (SPD) in which the materials are very heavily strained through the introduction of a high density of dislocations but without incurring any significant changes in the overall dimensions of the samples. The subsequent re-arrangement of these dislocations into lowangle boundaries and their further evolution into high angle boundaries forms the basis for the production of materials with exceptionally small grain sizes. Several different SPD processing procedures are now available but the two procedures receiving most interest are equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) and high-pressure torsion (HPT). In ECAP the sample, in the form of a short rod or bar, is pressed through a die constrained within a channel that is bent within the die through a sharp angle o ten ut not

a wa s equa to n t e samp e is genera in t e orm o a t in is simi ar to a coin and it is placed between heavy anvils and subjected to an applied pressure and concurrent torsional straining. Very recent investigations have explored the potential for applying HPT to larger bulk samples in the form of short cylinders. The procedures of ECAP and HPT are both capable of producing exceptional grain refinement but typically the materials processed by ECAP have ultrafine grain sizes within the submicrometer range whereas HPT may produce submicrometer materials or materials having a true nanometer grain size where the latter is defined as a grain size of<100 nm. A very early investigation showed the potential for achieving superplastic-like properties in materials processed using SPD procedures. In an experiment on an Al4% Cu0.5% Zr alloy, an elongation of 250% was achieved in a sample processed by HPT with an initial measured grain size of 0.3 m. In the following two sections, examples are presented for superplastic flow in materials processed by ECAP and HPT, respectively.

First scientific demonstration of true superplasticity Examples of exceptional superplasticity in a showing elongation of 1950% in the PbSn eutectic alloy. polycrystalline tetragonal Zirconia doped with 5% silica.

Examples of internal cavitation in a superplastic quasi-single phase copper alloy containing a dispersion of Co-rich particles: the cavity stringers consistently align parallel to the prior rolling direction which lies along the tensile axis in (a) and perpendicular to the tensile axis in (b).

An exceptional elongation of 3050% recorded in a Commercial extruded ZK60 magnesium alloy after processing by ECAP.

An example of superplasticity in an Al-3% Mg-0.2% Sc alloy processed by HTP and pulled to failure at

Samples made of clad superplastic alloy obtained by .method of superplastic deformation.

Superplasticity Extensibility of nanocrystalline copper at room temperature.