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Ductile-to-Brittle Transition in Low-Alloy Steel: A Combined Experimental and Numerical Investigation

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Abstract

Ductile-to-brittle transition in a low-alloy bainitic steel used as reactor pressure vessel material coincided with the change in brittle facet plane normal(s). Experimentally, it changed from ~ {100} facets at low temperatures to off-{100} planes at the higher temperatures. And such a change was also associated with brittle-to-ductile transition in the fracture mode. Molecular dynamics simulations, however, showed that the intrinsic cleavage plane remained {100} at all temperatures. Activation of atomistic mechanisms of crack kinking and dislocation pile-up, at higher temperatures, followed by the creation of atomistic ledges at the free surface resulted in the appearance of off-{100} facets.

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Data Availability

The raw data required to reproduce these findings are available on request by email to the corresponding author.

Notes

  1. This large elastic strain is due to the use of perfect crystal as a starting configuration of the simulation and is like previously reported strain values (Ref 1, 2, 22). Thus, the quantitative comparisons between simulations and experiments are avoided. Hence simulation results will be used only for providing the mechanistic explanations to the experimental results in this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Homi Bhabha National Institute, Trombay, Mumbai, 400085, India

    Tenneti Sharma & V. Kain

  2. Indian Navy, Mumbai, India

    Tenneti Sharma

  3. Materials Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, 400085, India

    N. Naveen Kumar, K. V. Mani Krishna & V. Kain

  4. Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400 076, India

    Riya Mondal & I. Samajdar

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  1. Tenneti Sharma
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Appendix

Appendix

EBSD of Fracture Surface for Determination of the Cleavage Facet Orientation

One of the principle limitations in employing the EBSD on fractured samples with facets (characteristic of brittle cleavage regions) is the unknown value of the sample’s local surface inclination with the incident electron beam. This angle is termed as tilt angle. Since the fractured facets can have arbitrary facet orientations, majority of the time the facet inclination is not supportive for the recording good quality Kikuchi patterns. Additionally, there can be shadow effect of other intervening facets. However, statistically some facets can have their surface inclination near the desirable value of ~ 70° from the incident beam. They can give rise to the solvable Kikuchi patterns. These patterns are hence amenable for orientation determination by EBSD with the assumption of surface being at 70° tilt to the incident beam. Any such measurement would, however, be associated with ‘error’. This ‘error’ was quantified in terms of two commonly known EBSD solution parameters: Confidence Index (CI) and Fit (Ref 82, 83).

The ‘error’ estimation involved an exercise similar in principle as the one proposed by David Field (Ref 82). As shown in Fig. 12, 400 × 400 micron scans were taken at different tilt angles: 60°-74°, and at 2° steps. CI and Fit values were estimated from such scans. As shown in Fig. 12, they showed the highest CI or lowest fit at 70° ± 2°. It was hence proposed that if measurement (albeit manual) of a faceted (and unpolished) surface had the highest CI (~ 0.9) and lowest fit (~ 0.1), then ‘error’ in orientation estimation is limited to ± 2°. The measurements presented in Fig. 4 are thus expected to have a measurement uncertainty of ± 2°.

Fig. 12
figure 12

The variation in the average confidence index (CI) and fit as a function of tilt angle. The data were generated from 400 × 400 micron scans of the typical martensitic structure (as in Fig. 2) of the Mn-Ni-Mo steel. Highest CI and lowest fit were obtained at 70° ± 2° of the tilt angle (color online)

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Sharma, T., Kumar, N.N., Mondal, R. et al. Ductile-to-Brittle Transition in Low-Alloy Steel: A Combined Experimental and Numerical Investigation. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 28, 4275–4288 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-019-04173-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-019-04173-1

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