DESAFIOS PARA LA IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE INSTRUMENTACIÓN PARA ENSAYOS IN SITU DE DEFORMACIÓN A ALTA TEMPERATURA EN EL MICROSCOPIO ELECTRÓNICO DE BARRIDO.

Failure mechanisms in structural materials have been under investigation for several years. Nowadays, the implementation of sophisticated in situ electron microscopy tests is providing new insights in several fields of chemistry, physics, and materials science by allowing direct observation of a wide variety of phenomena at submicron and even atomic scale. These experiments may involve controlled temperature and atmosphere, mechanical loading, magnetic and/or electric field among other conditions that are imposed to the sample while its response or evolution is registered. A novel in situ high temperature-strain test into a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) makes possible the real-time observation of phenomena with resolution of 5 μm, providing qualitative and quantitative data. This setup was used to study the Grain Boundary Sliding (GBS) mechanism and its effect on the high temperature cracking phenomenon known as Ductility-Dip Cracking (DDC). This methodology was applied to study the mechanical behavior of Ni-base filler metal alloys ERNiCrFe-7 and ERNiCr-3, which were evaluated between 700 and 1000 ºC. The DDC susceptibility (threshold strain, εmin) for both alloys was quantified. The εmin of ERNiCrFe-7 and ERNiCr-3 alloys was 7.5 % and 16.5 %, respectively, confirming the better resistance of ERNiCr-3 to DDC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]