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The influence of crystallographic texture of low-carbon, low-alloyed pipe steel (06Mn2MoNb) after thermo-mechanical controlled processing on fracture deformation has been studied by means of tensile testing and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) method. The paper demonstrates that fracture in textured metallic materials is characterized by anisotropy, while its characteristics are orientation-dependent. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.. All rights reserved. This study was supported by the grant of the President of the Russian Federation, Project SP-3775.2021.1.

In the current work, mild steel used in shipbuilding applications was friction-stir-welded (FSWed) with the aim of investigating the microstructure and mechanical properties of the FSWed joints. Mild steel of 5 mm thickness was friction-stir-welded at a constant tool rotation rate of 500 rpm and two different welding speeds of 20 mm/min and 50 mm/min and 3° tool tilt angle. The microstructure of the joints was investigated using optical and scanning electron microscopes. Additionally, the grain structure and crystallographic texture of the nugget (NG) zone of the FSWed joints was investigated using electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD). Furthermore, the mechanical properties were investigated using both tensile testing and hardness testing. The microstructure of the low-welding-speed joint was found to consist of fine-grain ferrite and bainite (acicular ferrite) with an average grain size of 3 µm, which indicates that the temperature experienced above A1, where a ferrite and austenite mixture is formed, and upon cooling, the austenite transformed into bainite. The joint produced using high welding speed resulted in a microstructure consisting mainly of polygonal ferrite and pearlite. This could be due to the temperature far below A1 experienced during FSW. In terms of joint efficiency expressed in terms of relative ultimate tensile, the stress of the joint to the base material was found to be around 92% for the low-speed joint and 83% for the high-welding-speed joint. A reduction in welding was attributed to the microstructure, as well as the microtunnel defect formed near the advancing side of the joint. The tensile strain was preserved at 18% for low welding speed and increased to 24% for the high welding speed. This can be attributed to the NG zone microstructural constituents. In terms of crystallographic texture, it is dominated by a simple shear texture, with increased intensity achieved by increasing the welding speed. In both joints, the hardness was found to be significantly increased in the NG zone of the joints, with a greater increase in the case of the low-welding-speed joint. This hardness increase is mainly attributed to the fine-grained structure formed after FSW.

This study presents the residual stress analysis for the twist extrusion (TE) process after the experiment and numerical simulation and the analysis of the crystallographic texture changes and changes in hardness before and after the TE process for an RSA-501 aluminium alloy (Al; Mg5%; Mn1.5%; Sc0.8%; Zr0.4%).Crystallographic textures were obtained with the PANAlytical Empyrean X-ray diffractometer. The stresses were measured by applying the X-ray method with the use of using the PROTO iXRD diffractometer.The use of severe plastic deformation processes in the mass of the material leads to a significant change difference in the stress distribution in the workpiece and a change in texture compared to the reference material. The stress distribution in the sample cross-section and stress values varied and depended on the stage of the twisting process to which the surface was subjected. The highest stress (about 600 MPa) appears at the peaks of the front surface when exiting the twist area die TE. Higher stress values at the edges of the specimen are caused by friction (deformation) of the material against the die surface. The TE process strengthened the highest crystallographic texture background level was 49%.The conducted tests and the obtained results allow the determination of the process parameters and critical areas of the sample by carrying out a numerical simulation.Microhardness increases due to the TE process and the largest values were observed at the edges. This phenomenon is confirmed by the numerical simulation results presented in this paper.

SUMMARYThe seismic anisotropy of the Earth's solid inner core has been the topic of much research. It could be explained by the crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO) developing during convection. The likely phase is hexagonal close-packed iron (hcp), alloyed with nickel and some lighter elements. Here we use high energy synchrotron X-rays to study CPO in Fe-9wt%Si, uniaxially compressed in a diamond anvil cell in radial geometry. The experiments reveal that strong preferred orientation forms in the low-pressure body-centred cubic (bcc) phase that appears to be softer than pure iron. CPO is attributed to dominant {110} slip. The onset of the bcc→hcp transition occurs at a pressure of ≈15 GPa, and the alloy remains in a two phase bcc + hcp state up to 40 GPa. The hcp phase forms first with a distinct {11$\bar{2}$0} maximum perpendicular to compression. Modelling shows that this is a transformation texture, which can be described by Burgers orientation relationship with variant selection. Experimental results suggest that bcc grains oriented with parallel to compression transform into hcp first. The CPO of the hcp changes only slowly during further pressure and deviatoric stress increase at ambient temperature. After heating to 1600 K, a change in the hcp CPO is observed with alignment of (0001) planes perpendicular to compression that can be interpreted as dominant (0001) slip, combined with {10$\bar{1}$2} mechanical twinning, which is similar to the deformation modes suggested previously for pure hcp iron at inner core conditions.

The metallic components are manufactured through several thermomechanical processes. Each selected procedure has multiple targets. The first target is to obtain the required dimensional criteria and second, to achieve the ideal mechanical response toward the application. This is currently accomplished through years of knowhow combined with an academic background of materials science and engineering. Since metals are polycrystalline materials, the several rotations of the crystals, the preferred orientation also known as texture, and their interactions, are crucial characteristics that are directly correlated to the final response of the material, and one could apprehend its thermomechanical prehistory as well as predict is behavior. Different atomic arrangements act differently texture-wise therefore in the current review article, the evolution of the microstructure and the crystallographic texture through the thermomechanically rolling process especially of Al alloys for packaging applications is analyzed. The crystallographic texture evolution in 3xxx Al alloys in different processing routes is presented and compared to the anisotropic effects occurring during deep drawing. The earing phenomena in Al alloys are correlated to the produced texture and therefore their understanding is crucial in order to highlight the importance of texture control throughout the thermomechanical process.

This work highlights the importance of reporting the surface properties of polycrystalline substrates when presenting nucleation studies and metal nanoparticle electrochemical growth.

Among processes involving plastic deformation, sheet metal forming requires a most accurate description of plastic anisotropy. One of the main sources of mechanical anisotropy is crystallographic texture, which induces directionality in the macroscopic plastic properties of the polycrystalline metallic alloy sheets (e.g. anisotropy in yield stresses, Lankford coefficients). Recently, we develop a single-crystal yield criterion that satisfies the intrinsic symmetries of the constituent crystals and the condition of insensitivity to hydrostatic pressure [1]. Moreover, this single-crystal criterion is defined for any 3-D stress state. It was shown that the use of this single-crystal criterion for the description of the plastic behavior of the constituent crystals in conjunction with appropriate homogenization procedures leads to an improved prediction of the plastic anisotropy in macroscopic properties under uniaxial loading for polycrystalline aluminum alloys. In this paper, using this polycrystalline model, we simulate the deformation response of sheets of various crystallographic textures. Examples demonstrate the predictive capabilities of the model to describe the influence of the crystallographic texture on the macroscopic behavior and on the final shape of parts obtained using deep-drawing.

There is a fast-growing interest in the use of selective laser melting (SLM) for metal/alloy additive manufacturing. Our current knowledge of SLM printed 316 stainless steel (SS316) is limited and sometimes appears sporadic, presumably due to the complex interdependent effects of a large number of process variables of the SLM processing. This is reflected from the discrepant findings in the crystallographic textures and microstructures in this investigation with those reported in the literatures, which also vary itself. The as-printed material is macroscopically asymmetric in both the structures and crystallographic textures. The and crystallographic directions align parallel with the SLM scanning direction (SD) and build direction (BD), respectively. Like-wise, some characteristic low angle boundary features are reported crystallographic, while this investigation unequivocally proves them non-crystallographic since they always maintain an identical alignment with the SLM laser scanning direction irrespective of the matrix material’s crystal orientation. There is also 500±200 nm columnar or cellular features, depending on the cross-section, generally found all over the sample. These columnar or cellular features are formed with walls made of dense packing of dislocations entangled with Mn, Si and O enriched amorphous inclusions. They remain stable after the ASM solution treatments at 1050 °C temperatures, and therefore, are capable of hindering boundary migration events of recrystallization and grain growth. Thus, the nanoscale structures can be retained at high temperatures. Large 2-4 µm inclusions form during the solution treatment, within which the chemical and phase distribution are heterogeneous.

A set of IF steel specimens, at different states of recrystallisation (commercially cold rolled and annealed to give partially recrystallised and fully recrystallised microstructures) and accordingly different texture components have been used to investigate the measurement and prediction of magnetic anisotropy. A finite element microstructure model that considers crystallographic texture has been used for the prediction of magnetic anisotropy to compare to the measured values, with comparable anisotropy being observed. The results show that the proposed deployable non-destructive approach (U-shaped electromagnetic sensor that can be placed onto a sheet sample) is promising for the quick evaluation of the magnetic anisotropy in IF steels.

Plastic inhomogeneity, particularly localised strain, is one of the main mechanisms responsible for failures in engineering alloys. This work studied the spatial arrangement and distribution of microstructure and their influence in the plastic inhomogeneity of Inconel 718 fabricated by additive manufacturing (AM). In particular, the density and spatial distribution of geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) and the crystallographic texture components were examined in relation to the spatial plastic deformation. In-situ tensile testing coupled with microscopy and EBSD was performed to understand the evolution of the as-built microstructure and its effect on the spatial and temporal deformation behaviour. Bidirectional scan strategy with no interlayer rotation resulted in highly ordered alternating arrangements of coarse Goss-like {110} textured grains separated by fine Cube-like {100} textured grains. This strategy also resulted in an overall high density of dislocations (in particular GNDs) with a regular pattern: the fine grains contained very high GND density while the coarse grains contained less GNDs but they were oriented to be perpendicular to the scan direction. Although this strategy resulted in a dominant Cube texture that is desirable for isotropy, the Cube texture gradually weakened and the undesirable Goss component increased during plastic deformation. Together with the columnar grain morphology and aligned GND arrangement, such texture evolution caused intense plastic inhomogeneity during deformation. Replacing the bidirectional strategy with a chessboard strategy involving a 67° layer rotation resulted in a lower GND density and much more random distribution of crystallographic texture and GNDs, with a dominant Cube component (and lower Goss texture) that remained stable throughout plastic deformation, reducing the plastic inhomogeneity.

This study demonstrated that the gas flow direction in the laser beam powder bed fusion (PBF-LB) significantly affects the crystallographic texture evolved in the products. The effect on texture is attributed to the difference in the melt pool depth, which depends on gas flow direction. The melt pool was shallower when the laser scanning and gas flow directions were parallel than when they were perpendicular. This phenomenon should be of particular concern when applying Scan Strategy_XY wherein the laser was scanned with a 90° rotation in each layer, which is often used in PBF-LB. The asymmetry in the melt pool depth generated by laser scanning in the x- and y-directions can lead to unintended variations in the crystallographic texture. The gas phase would interact with a part being manufactured immediately beneath the gas and affect the crystallographic feature of the product.

In the current study, the effect of equal channel angular pressing parameters such as die route type and die angle were studied. Billets of pure magnesium (Mg) were processed successfully through up to 2-passes of different routes, A, Bc, and C, using equal channel angular pressing dies with different internal angles of 90° and 120° at 225°C. The crystallographic texture and microstructural evolution were investigated using electron back-scatter diffraction. The Vickers microhardness and tensile properties were investigated, analyzed, and linked to the microstructure and crystallographic texture as well. The as-annealed condition revealed relatively coarse equiaxed grains coupled with some extra-elongated grains with average grain size of 6.338 µm. Processing through 2-passes formed an ultrafine grain structure and recrystallized fine grains. This decrease in grain size was associated with hardness and tensile strength enhancement as compared with the as-annealed Mg counterpart. ECAP processing through the 90° die revealed that 2-passes of route Bc was more effective in grain refinement compared to routes A and C, and it reduced the average grain size by 76.45% compared to the as-annealed counterpart. On the other hand, for the ECAP die with 120°, route A was more effective in grain refinement compared to the other routes. Processing through 2-passes of route C resulted in a stronger texture compared to the other routes with momentous rotation for the texture components. Processing of 2-A, 2-Bc, and 2-C through the 90°-die revealed an increase in the Vickers Hardness (HV) of 76.9, 96, and 84.6%, respectively, compared to the AA counterpart. In addition, the tensile findings revealed that the 90°-die resulted in higher ultimate tensile strength coupled with a drop-in ductility compared to the 120°-die. Furthermore, ECAP processing through the 90°-die led to improvement in the ultimate tensile strength by 14.1, 38.4, and 43.75%, respectively, coupled with improving the Mg ductility by 80.9, 73.5, and 47.6% through processing via 2-A, 2-Bc, and 2-C, respectively, compared to the as-annealed counterpart.

In this work, we present the characterization of Ti sheathed MgB $_2$ wires prepared by PIT with two different cross-sections: circular and hexagonal. We determined the crystallographic texture of both the Ti sheath and the MgB $_2$ core by X-ray diffraction (XRD) pole figures. We evaluated the critical current density ( $J_c$ ) of the wires in two different directions using a SQUID magnetometer, in order to determine the anisotropic factor of the current density ( $J_{af}$ ). We found that $J_{af}$ is larger than one and it is field independent for both wires, consistently with the increased probability to encounter the basal planes perpendicular to the axial direction ( $AD$ ) obtained in the crystallographic texture.

Hagihara K., Nakano T.. Control of Anisotropic Crystallographic Texture in Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing of Metals and Ceramics—A Review. JOM, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-021-04966-7., Additive manufacturing (AM) enables the production of complex, net-shape geometries. Additionally, in AM of metal and ceramics, which has received less attention, the microstructure and texture of the product can be arbitrarily controlled by selecting appropriate process parameters, thereby enabling unprecedented superior properties. This paper discusses recent progress pertaining to texture evolution mechanisms and control methods, with an emphasis on selective laser melting. One of the unique characteristics of AM is that the texture can be varied as a function of position within the product by controlling the scan strategy. The transient behavior of the texture and the factor used to control it via the scan strategy are discussed. In addition, the texture evolution behavior of face- and body-centered cubic as well as noncubic materials is discussed. The importance of the crystallographic “multiplicity” of the preferential crystal growth direction is described to understand the evolution behavior of the texture in such materials.

Inherent brittleness and low mechanical reliability usually inhibit the application of ceramic materials in many structural applications. In this work, we demonstrate that integrating crystallographic texture and second-phase toughening strategies can effectively improve fracture resistance and mechanical reliability in alumina multilayer composites. Composites consisted of equiaxed (1-x)Al2O3-xZrO2 and highly [0001]-textured Al2O3 layers were fabricated, and effects of ZrO2 amount on fracture behavior and mechanical properties of the composites were studied. Increasing ZrO2 amount x results in larger thermal expansion difference between equiaxed and textured layers. The composites with equiaxed layers containing 30 vol% ZrO2 exhibit high apparent fracture toughness Kapt, c ~11.7 MPa·m1/2 and work of fracture γWOF ~1540 J/m2, which correspond respectively to about 260% and 410% enhancements relative to those without ZrO2 addition. Moreover, adding ZrO2 remarkably reduces sensitivity of failure stress to flaw size in the multilayer composites, and the failure stress substantially increases with increasing ZrO2 content. The greatly enhanced mechanical performance achieved here can be mainly attributed to higher magnitude of compressive stresses, more crack bifurcations and longer crack deflection paths within the textured layers. This work can provide important guidelines for developing novel “bio-inspired” materials with improved fracture resistance and flaw tolerance behavior.

Cracking limits the formability of Mg-alloyed zinc coatings on steel substrates. Unfavorable crystal orientations and brittle microstructural components serve as the main sources of cracks in these coatings. In this study, we overcome the deformation-induced cracking and substantially enhance the formability of Zn-Al-Mg coatings by controlling their crystallographic texture. To demonstrate this, in-situ scanning electron microscopy uniaxial tensile tests and thorough orientation image microscopy have been employed. Ultimately, we validate our findings by implementing quantitative plastic deformation-based criteria, namely local strain hardening exponent and Schmid factor distributions within the examined coating microstructures. The approach and findings of the present work considerably resolve the long-lasting cracking problem of these coatings.

Sun S.H., Hagihara K., Ishimoto T., et al. Comparison of microstructure, crystallographic texture, and mechanical properties in Ti–15Mo–5Zr–3Al alloys fabricated via electron and laser beam powder bed fusion technologies. Additive Manufacturing, 47, 102329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2021.102329., Depending on the application, establishing a strategy for selecting the type of powder bed fusion technology—from electron beam (EB-PBF) or laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF)—is important. In this study, we focused on the β-type Ti–15Mo–5Zr–3Al alloy (expected for hard-tissue implant applications) as a model material, and we examined the variations in the microstructure, crystallographic texture, and resultant mechanical properties of specimens fabricated by L-PBF and EB-PBF. Because the melting mode transforms from the conduction mode to the keyhole mode with an increase in the energy density in L-PBF, the relative density of the L-PBF-built specimen decreases at higher energy densities, unlike that of the EB-PBF-built specimen. Although both EB-PBF and L-PBF can obtain cubic crystallographic textures via bidirectional scanning with a 90° rotation in each layer, the formation mechanisms of the textures were found to be different. The texture in the build direction is mainly derived from the vertically grown columnar cells in EB-PBF, whereas it is derived from the vertically and horizontally grown columnar cells in L-PBF. Consequently, different textures were developed via bidirectional scanning without rotation in each layer: the and aligned textures along the build direction in L-PBF and EB-PBF, respectively. The L-PBF-built specimen exhibited considerably better ductility, but slightly lower strength than the EB-PBF-built specimen, under the conditions of the same crystallographic texture and relative density. We attributed this to the variation in the microstructures of the specimens; the formation of the α-phase was completely absent in the L-PBF-built specimen. The results demonstrate the importance of properly selecting the two technologies according to the material and its application.