Notes on Physical Metallurgy
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Notes on Physical Metallurgy Ju Li, MIT, December 10, 2015 1 Structures3 2 Metallic Bonding, Ideal Strength and the Dislocations Machinery 19 3 Linear Response Theory and Long-Range Diffusion 45 4 Capillary Energy Effects 70 5 Elastic Energy Effects 95 6 Interfacial Mobility 103 7 Nucleation, Growth and Coarsening 109 8 Solidification 128 9 Point defects: Climb, Anelasticity, Strain aging 138 A Review of Bulk Thermodynamics 142 B Spinodal Decomposition and Gradient Thermodynamics Description of the 1 Interface 168 2 Chapter 1 Structures The connections between structures - properties - processing, as illustrated on the cover of Acta Materialia, is the basis of materials science and engineering. Because of the relatively simple atomic structure of metals and the wide applications of metals (Bronze Age, Iron Age, copper interconnects in microprocessors), these connections were first discovered and distilled by metallurgists, and such methods and outlook are then extended to other kinds of materials: ceramics, polymers, semiconductors, biomaterials, etc. Although details vary a lot across different materials classes, especially in synthesis, the spirit and outlook are preserved a great deal in most areas of materials science and engineering - including the reliance on thermodynamic (Josiah Gibbs) and kinetic (Lars Onsager, John Cahn) theories, the realization of the importance of intervening scales (\microstructure" controls properties), the respect for processing details (physicists don't appreciate the detailed recipe- and history- dependencies of processing as much as materials scientists). The narrowest definition of Physical Metallurgy was the control of materials properties by thermo-mechanical processing (\heat and beat"), as distinguished from Chemical Metallurgy (changing the chemical composition), and Mechanical Metallurgy (\just beat, no heat"). Such definition is quite arbitrary, however, fundamentally. By \heat", people mean raising temperature T significantly above Troom = 300K, as most applications (let's say ∼ 90% of where metals are applied in tonnage) are at Troom. But 300K for steel is quite different from 300K for Sn. And even though kBTroom = 1=40 eV is quite \small" compared to the primary bond energies in steel (vacancy formation energy in α-Fe is 1.5 eV, which is about 4 bonds' worth), it turns out thermal fluctuations still cannot be ignored for most 3 processes of interest. 1 Also, physical metallurgists rely a lot on chemical thermodynamics and phase diagram in treating diffusion and phase transformations, so the boundary between Physical and Chemical Metallurgy is not sharp. For this reason, I would like to regard Physical Metallurgy as Physical, Chemical and Mechanical Metallurgy combined, but with emphasis on thermo-mechanical processing. The students in this class are expected to have taken 3.022 Microstructural Evolution in Ma- terials and 3.032 Mechanical Behavior of Materials or their equivalents already. Some topics of our class may overlap with ealier courses. But because we are 3.14 (upper undergrads) / 3.40J / 22.71J (grad student), this course is expected to be offered at a somewhat higher level, and also will have an integrative flavor. If all goes well, at end of this course you may agree that materials science is a very subtle science: one may think one understands something, until one looks at it once again from another angle, or at a different time/lengthscale. We begin with the word \structure". By now you have heard about (a) atomic structure, (b) molecular structure, as in double-stranded helical DNA, (c) microstructure, as in the (perhaps somewhat chauvinistic) old-school metallurgical matra \microstructure controls properties", (d) nanostructure, as in \One nanometer (one billionth of a meter) is a magical point on the dimensional scale. Nanostructures are at the confluence of the smallest of human-made devices and the largest molecules of living systems..." - yes, they did use the word \magical" - from a call for proposal from the US National Science Foundation 2. You may have also heard the word electronic structure from researchers doing so- called ab initio or first-principles calculations, in solving Schrodinger equation for many electrons, to obtain atomic interactions and interatomic forces numerically. So, which of these \structures" is the most important? The modern view is that none of the above structures, electronic structure - atomic structure (molecular structure) - nanostructure - microstructure, and even macro-structures (such as a trussed roof), could be ignored. In other words, all these structures potentially could be \equally" important. According to this \multiscale materials" view, there is no need to be particularly chauvinistic about any particular lengthscale, from the A˚ to the m. There are interesting physics and theory about these physics at all these scales, and they cascade through each other (\handshake"). Like a chain, no link can be missed on this chain of logic. According to [1], p.1, microstructure is what can be observed under an optical microscope 1If in doubt, some properties of steel at 300K, such as ductility, can be really different from at 0K. 2Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center program, U.S. National Science Foundation, 2001 4 (such as grains in a polycrystal), with 100× to 1000× magnification power. However, when the grain size D shrinks to say, 80nm, optical microscope can't see the grains (one has to use electron microscopes), but the dependence of properties such as yield strength σY on D −1=2 (so called Hall-Petch relation: σ(D) = σ0 + kD ) is no less sensitive than when D is 10 µm when optical microscope can see them [2]. Thus, putting a hard lengthscale bound on a concept based on the resolution limit of some observation instrument is convenient but not very enlightening. In this course, we intentionally smear the concept of microstructure to make the concept inclusive. We would not separate nanostructure from microstructure. Dislocations, cracks, grain boundaries, surfaces, phase boundaries, etc. are all components of the microstructure. In our course, the term microstructure just denotes some structural order or descriptor, beyond the Angstrom-level atomic structure. The term \Microstructural Evolution" is one of the most frequently used word in metal- lurgy. The choice of the word \Evolution" is intriguing. What is common between Darwin's Evolution in Earth's biosphere, and \Microstructural Evolution" inside a piece of metal? A modern view, mostly coming from physicists, is that biological evolution and microstruc- tural evolution all belong to so-called emergent phenomena (also called self-organization, spontaneous order) or emergence in dissipative systems. A dissipative system is a system out of equilibrium, where free energy is being spent (∆Suniverse > 0) instead of conserved (∆Suniverse = 0). In thermodynamics, we know that an isolated system at equilibrium, such as a canister of gas with no energy or mass in or out, will reach the state of max- imum disorder (homogeneous in density, temperature, no flow), or maximum entropy, for the given constraints (the adiabatic, mechanically strong and impermeable box that con- tains the gas molecules). However, Earth is not an isolated system: there is high-quality sunlight (Tblackbody = 5800K) coming in, and lower-quality light emission going out (think Tblackbody = 2:7K for cosmic background radiation). So Earth is in effect a giant heat en- gine, enjoying the great benefits of a huge free-energy influx, even though the raw energy flux is nearly balanced (energy in = energy out). This free-energy dissipation is what supports biosphere, from the smallest plankton to whales, and Darwin's Evolution, where order emerges - the species - with some highly conserved traits, despite of rich and intricate interactions between the species. The same principle is true for a piece of metal. When one \heats and beats" a metal, or react oxygen or hydrogen or lithium with it, or irradiate it with high-energy neutrons, one is injecting free energy into the system, or \dissipating good energy". In exchange for such wasteful behavior, one gets to see beautiful patterns that emerge spontaneously inside the 5 metals, the \microstructures". Like \following the money" in All the President's Men, it is crucial to account for the flows of free energy G = E + PV − TS (1.1) in a metal, because the flow/dissipation of G generates the microstructures. Indeed, without a large flux of outside free energy, most \microstructures" cannot form. From the Boltzmann formula c0 / exp(−Ef =kBT ) (1.2) where c0 is the equilibrium concentration of some defect, and Ef is its formation energy, one cannot explain the presence of extended defects like dislocations or grain boudaries since their Ef ! 1, if based on just equilibrium thermal fluctuations. In other words, most defects except the point defects (like vacancies) are manifestations of out-of-equilibrium- ness. And oftentimes even the vacancy concentrations themselves are out-of-equilibrium (such as quenched-in vacancies in aluminum alloys, or materials under irradiation). One needs to beat the metal, quench the metal, irradiate the metal with 1MeV neutrons, do something more \dramatic" like the above, to create the extended defects. Just like plants tend to cover everywhere there is sunlight, dislocations tend to multiply (there is a word \dislocation breeding" in the field as if dislocations were animals), and cracks tend to grow, to take advantage of elastic strain energy density stored in the material. Dislocations or 2 cracks \feed" on elastic strain energy density: estrain(x) = σ(x) =2C, where C is the elastic constant, σ(x) is the stres at location x, and estrain(x) is the elastic strain energy density. Free energy to a metal is like money to a society, or food/ATP to biosphere. When one stops heating/quenching, beating on or irradiating the metals, one stops injecting more \good energy" into the system. But there is often still some free energy stored inside the system to drive further evolution, for instance in the form of residual stress (due to - surprise - microstructures!), which induces residual elastic strain energy.