High performance and low thermal expansion in Er-Fe-V-Mo dual-phase alloys

Kun Lin, Wenjie Li, Chengyi Yu, Suihe Jiang, Yili Cao, Qiang Li, Jun Chen, Minghe Zhang, Min Xia, Yan Chen, Ke An, Xiaobing Li, Qinghua Zhang, Lin Gu, Xianran Xing

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Low thermal expansion alloy plays a unique role in high precision instruments and devices owing to its size stability under thermal shocks. However, a low thermal expansion generally produces a poor mechanical performance, such as brittleness and low fracture resistance, which is a bottle-neck for their applications as functional materials. Here, we demonstrate a novel intermetallic compound-based dual-phase alloy of Er-Fe-V-Mo with excellent structural and functional integrity achieved by precipitating a ductile phase in the hard-intermetallic matrix with large magnetovolume effect. It is found that the compound with 12.8 ± 0.1vol% precipitate phase improves the alloy's strength and toughness by one order of magnitude, while keeping a low bulk coefficient of thermal expansion (1.87±0.02 × 10−6 K − 1) over a wide temperature range (100 to 493 K). The combined analyses of real-time in-situ neutron diffraction, synchrotron X-ray diffraction, and microscopy reveal that both the thermal expansion and the mechanical properties of the precipitate phase are coupled with the matrix phase via semi-coherent interfacial constraint; more importantly, the precipitate phase undergoes a pronounced strain hardening with dislocation slips, which relieves the stress localization and thus hinders the microcrack propagation in the intermetallic matrix. Moreover, the alloys are easy to fabricate and stable during thermal cycling with great application potentials. This study shed light on the development of low thermal expansion alloys as well as the implications to other high-performance intermetallic-compound-based material design.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)271-280
Number of pages10
JournalActa Materialia
Volume198
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2020

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21971009, 21701008, 21590793, 21731001), National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (BX201700027), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (FRF-IDRY-19–018). The synchrotron radiation experiments were performed at the BL44B2 of SPring-8 with the approval of the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) (Proposal No. 2019A1378, 2018B1515). A portion of this research used resources at Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05–00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan . This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21971009, 21701008, 21590793, 21731001), National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (BX201700027), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (FRF-IDRY-19–018). The synchrotron radiation experiments were performed at the BL44B2 of SPring-8 with the approval of the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) (Proposal No. 2019A1378, 2018B1515). A portion of this research used resources at Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Keywords

  • Crystal structure
  • Intermetallic compound
  • Low thermal expansion
  • Magnetovolume effect
  • Mechanical properties
  • Neutron diffraction

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