Visualization and validation of twin nucleation and early-stage growth in magnesium
Abstract
The abrupt occurrence of twinning when Mg is deformed leads to a highly anisotropic response, making it too unreliable for structural use and too unpredictable for observation. Here, we describe an in-situ transmission electron microscopy experiment on Mg crystals with strategically designed geometries for visualization of a long-proposed but unverified twinning mechanism. Combining with atomistic simulations and topological analysis, we conclude that twin nucleation occurs through a pure-shuffle mechanism that requires prismatic-basal transformations. Also, we verified a crystal geometry dependent twin growth mechanism, that is the early-stage growth associated with instability of plasticity flow, which can be dominated either by slower movement of prismatic-basal boundary steps, or by faster glide-shuffle along the twinning plane. The fundamental understanding of twinning provides a pathway to understand deformation from a scientific standpoint and the microstructure design principles to engineer metals with enhanced behavior from a technological standpoint.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jan 10, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1038/s41467-021-27591-z
Entities
People
- Andrew M. Minor
- Dalong Zhang
- Enrique J. Lavernia
- Irene J Beyerlein
- Jian Wang
- Jim Ciston
- Julie Schoenung
- Lin Jiang
- Mingjie Xu
- Mingyu Gong
- S. Mahajan
- Timothy J. Rupert
- Xiaoqing Pan
- Xin Wang
- Yinmin Morris Wang
- Zhiliang Pan
Organizations
- National Science Foundation