Institute of Metals Division - Mechanism for Thermally Activated Prismatic Slip in Ag2-Al

The effect of strain rate and temperature on the critical resolved shear stress for (1100) [1120] prismatic slip was determined for the intermediate hexagonal phase containing about 67 at. pct Ag and 33 at. pct Al. Whereas the flow stress increased only slightly as the test temperature was first decreased below room temperature, a rapid increase inflow stress was obtained with yet greater decreases in temperature from about 240" to 4°K. The effect of both temperature and strain rate on the flow stress over the low-temperature range could be completely rationalized in terms of the Peierls mechanism when the deformation is controlled by the rate of nucleation of pairs of kinks. A few years ago Mote, Tanaka, and Dorn1 observed that the critical resolved shear stress for prismatic slip of a 67 at. pct Ag plus 33 at. pct A1 hexagonal intermediate phase by the (1100)[1120] mode decreased precipitously as the test temperature was increased from 4" to about 160°K. Their results for both basal and prismatic slip are given in Fig. 1. It is obvious that only the flow stress for prismatic slip is strongly temperature-dependent, whereas the flow stress for basal slip is independent of temperature. If the temperature dependence of the flow stress were primarily due to interstitial impurities, it might be expected that they would influence the flow stress for basal slip as well. Since the activation volume at 115°K for prismatic slip was determined to be about 15b3, where b is the Burgers' vector, this thermally activated deformation process was tentatively ascribed as being due to the Peierls mechanism. But the various analyses of the Peierls mechanism then available as formulated by Seeger2 and also by Lothe and Hirth3 did not agree well with the experimental data. Since that time a more realistic theory for the operation of the Peierls mechanism under conditions where the strain rate is determined by the rate of nucleation of pairs of kinks has been presented by Dorn and Rajnak.4 The present investigation was, therefore, undertaken in order to provide the essential data for a careful check on the agreement between this theory and the low-temperature deformation by prismatid slip of the above-mentioned Ag2A1 intermediate phase. EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUE Single-crystal specimens so oriented that the [1120] direction and the normal to the (1100) plane were at 45 * 2 deg to the tensile axis were grown from the congruent melting composition of about Ag2Al for the intermediate hexagonal phase by the