C.D. Versteylen
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6 records found
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A self-consistent model is applied to predict the creep cavity growth and strain rates in metals from the perspective of self-healing. In this model, the creep cavity growth rate is intricately linked to the strain rate. The self-healing process causes precipitates to grow inside creep cavities. Due to the Kirkendall effect, a diffusional flux of vacancies is induced in the direction away from the creep cavity during this selective self-healing precipitation. This process impedes the creep cavity growth. The critical stress for self-healing can be derived, and an analysis is made of the efficiency of self-healing elements in binary Fe–Cu, Fe–Au, Fe–Mo, and Fe–W alloys. Fe–Au is found to be the most efficient self-healing alloy. Fe–Mo and Fe–W alloys provide good alternatives that have the potential to be employed at high temperatures.
The autonomous filling of creep-loading induced grain-boundary cavities by gold-rich precipitates at a temperature of 550 °C has been studied as a function of the applied load for Fe-Au alloys using synchrotron X-ray nano-tomography. The alloy serves as a model alloy for future self-healing creep resistant steels. The size, shape and spatial distribution of cavities and precipitates are analyzed quantitatively in 3D at a nanometer resolution scale. The filling ratios for individual cavities are determined and thus a map of the filling ratio evolution is obtained. It is found that the gold-rich precipitates only form at cavity surfaces and thereby repair the creep cavity. The shape of the cavities changes from equiaxed to planar crack like morphologies as the cavities grow. The time evolution of the filling ratio is explained by a simple model considering isolated cavities as well as linked cavities. The model predictions are in good agreement with the measurements.