Grain boundary relaxation strengthening of nanocrystalline Ni–W alloys

My coworkers (Chris Schuh and Jason Trelewicz) and I have recently published research results in the Journal of Materials Research.  In this work, we explore how nonequilibrium grain boundary structure affects the strength of a nanocrystalline alloy.  First, the kinetics of relaxation strengthening are studied, showing that higher annealing temperatures result in faster, more pronounced strengthening.  Next, the magnitude of relaxation strengthening is explored over a wide range of grain sizes spanning the Hall-Petch breakdown.  Our results show that very subtle details of interface structure can dramatically alter the mechanical properties and deformation physics of nanostructured materials.

Our paper can be found at:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2012.55