Part V – May 1969 - Papers - Plastic Deformation Behavior in the Fe3 Si Superlattice

An extensive investigation has been made of the deformation behavior associated with the Fe3Si super-lattice using transmission electron microscopy techniques. Above 243°K the stress-strain curve exhibits three stages. Stage I occurs at a very low stress level and is related to the generation of perfect superlat-tice dislocations. Stage II is characterized by an extremely rapid rate of work hardening and is associated with the Taylor type locking of these superlattice dislocations. Finally Stage III is related to dynamic recovery processes since the work hardening rate is very small. Below 243ºK, only Stage I is observed, but it occurs at a much higher stress level. This latter observation is related to the generation of imperfect dislocations in Stage I with the consequent production of second nearest neighbor antiphase boundaries. The reason for this is that insufficient thermal energy is available at these low temperatures to generate the complete and perfect superlattice dislocations. It has been shown that the fully ordered FeCo alloys, i.e., those possessing the B2 type structure, exhibit three distinct stages of work hardening whereas the corresponding disordered alloys show only one.&apos;" This difference in behavior between the disordered and ordered alloys has been attributed to the fact that dislocations in the former case travel only as ordinary 1/2ao(111) types whereas in the latter case the move through the lattice as coupled 1/2a0(111) dislocations separated by an antiphase boundary (APB), i.e., the so-called superlattice dislocation. Although some preliminary work has been carried out concerning plastic deformation in ordered alloys possessing the DO3 type superlattice,3 no detailed analysis similar to that described in Refs. 1 and 2 has been attempted. Specifically, it has been suggested that the superlattice dislocation in this particular type structure should consist of four ordinary 1/2ao<111> types bound together by first and second nearest-neighbor APB&apos;s. Fe3A1 and Fe3Si are the two classic alloys possessing the DO3 type lattice; however, because of the somewhat higher ordering energies associated with the FesSi alloy, which in turn assures that dislocations will travel through the lattice as perfect superlattice dislocations under at least some conditions, it was chosen for the present investigation. Because of the extreme brittleness of Fe3Si, all deformation was done in compression. Stress-strain curves were obtained using both polycrystalline samples as well as single crystals. In the latter case the crystals were oriented so that deformation could be controlled either by single or double slip. They were then wafered parallel to and at various angles to the operative slip planes. These wafers were in turn examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques in order to determine the extent of the interaction from the dislocation configuration contained therein. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE The alloys used in this investigation were arc melted under helium from electrolytic iron of greater than 99.90 wt pct purity and transistor grade silicon of 99.99 wt pct purity. A typical analysis of interstitial impurities showed 120 ppm 0, 15 ppm N, and 65 ppm C Because of the extremely low ductility of the Fe3Si alloys, it was necessary to spark cut 0.230-in. diam polycrystalline cylinders 0.400 in. long from arc-melted fingers using a thin-walled brass tube as a cutting tool. The polycrystalline alloys could not be recrystallized since very little strain was induced in preparation. However they were annealed at 1273°C for 15 min in evacuated vycor capsules to relieve any cooling stresses that may have developed during solidification and then air cooled. The resulting grain size of the alloy was 0.50 mm. According to warlimont4 1273ºC is just within the single phase field where FesSi possesses the DO3 type lattice. In addition because of this high critical ordering tem-ature, air cooling from this temperature was believed sufficient to fully order all of the Fe3Si samples used in the present investigation. For the same reason, no attempt was made to achieve any degree of disorder by quenching. In fact, rapid quenching from 1123°K caused cracking. Such cracking was first suggested by sato5 with respect to the experimental observations of Glaser and Ivanick.6 Single crystal compression specimens were spark cut from single crystal ingots grown in a Bridgman type furnace. The iron and silicon for the crystals was prealloyed by arc-melting two 130-g buttons which were cut into small pieces before remelting in the furnace. This procedure resulted in a long-range inhomogeneity of 0.5 at. pct Si between the top and bottom of the 2-in.-long single crystal ingot, which was assumed to be negligible in the present investigation. The single crystals, after orienting and spark-cutting, were about 0.37 in. by 0.37 in. in cross section and about 0.5 in. long. True stress-strain curves were obtained using an Instron Tensile Testing machine in conjunction with techniques described previously. 1,7 The strain rate was 0.05 in. per in. per min. Prior to testing, the ends of all the compression cylinders were hand polished using a special jig to insure parallelism after which the sides of the samples were electrochemically polished to eliminate stress risers and to facilitate slip line observations. Test temperatures between 77" and 823°K were obtained using various cooling and heating media as described in Ref. 7 while at the upper end of this temperature range, a mixture of equal