Revealing the micromechanisms behind semi-solid metal deformation with time-resolved X-ray tomography

K. M. Kareh, P. D. Lee (), R. C. Atwood, T. Connolley and C. M. Gourlay ()
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K. M. Kareh: Imperial College London
P. D. Lee: School of Materials, The University of Manchester
R. C. Atwood: Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science & Innovation campus
T. Connolley: Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science & Innovation campus
C. M. Gourlay: Imperial College London

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract The behaviour of granular solid–liquid mixtures is key when deforming a wide range of materials from cornstarch slurries to soils, rock and magma flows. Here we demonstrate that treating semi-solid alloys as a granular fluid is critical to understanding flow behaviour and defect formation during casting. Using synchrotron X-ray tomography, we directly measure the discrete grain response during uniaxial compression. We show that the stress–strain response at 64–93% solid is due to the shear-induced dilation of discrete rearranging grains. This leads to the counter-intuitive result that, in unfed samples, compression can open internal pores and draw the free surface into the liquid, resulting in cracking. A soil mechanics approach shows that, irrespective of initial solid fraction, the solid packing density moves towards a constant value during deformation, consistent with the existence of a critical state in mushy alloys analogous to soils.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5464

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