Submitted By: Ankit Verma B.Tech 3rd Year Mechanical & Industrial Engg.

Deptt IIT Roorkee

One of the very basic results of the physics and chemistry of solids is the insight that most properties of solids depend on the microstructure, i.e. the chemical composition, the arrangement of the atoms (the atomic structure) and the size of a solid in one, two or three dimensions.

The most well-known example of the correlation between the atomic structure and the properties of a bulk material is probably the spectacular variation in the hardness of carbon when it transforms from diamond to graphite

The important aspects related to structure are: Atomic defects, dislocations and strains Grain boundaries and interfaces Porosity Connectivity and percolation Short range order

Properties Changes
Density The strength depends on o relative density and decreased with increasing porosity Fracture Strength

Figure 1 Shows a comparison of strength and fracture toughness of alumina based nanocomposites at room temperature as a function of SiC content as reported by several groups.

Strengthening Mechanism
The evidence is that Al2O3/SiC nanocomposites show an explicit increase in strength accompanied by a modest increase in toughness. Furthermore, grain boundaries are strengthened in nanocomposites as manifested by the transcrystalline fracture mode as well as by the increased resistance to wear and creep.

Figure 2 shows strength and fracture toughness for various Si3N4/SiC nanocomposites as a function of SiC volume fraction.

Critical Flaw size reduction

1) Zener grain size boundary pinning The effect of grain boundary pinning by small inclusions is described by Smith after a semi quantitative approach by Zener:

where R is the average matrix grain boundary radius of curvature, depending on the radius (r) and the volume fraction (Vf) of spherical inclusions. Equation is often given in the form

D r/ Vf

Where D is the average matrix grain diameter

In Fig. 3 the Zener model is compared with experimental data where Matrix Size R is plotted as a function of 1/Vf

Reduction in processing flaw size

Increased strength of the nanocomposites is a reduction in the size of processing flaws In Al2O3/SiC nano-composite powder mixtures, hard SiC agglomerates. The latter commonly cause large processing flaws such as voids in alumina ceramics.

Crack Healing
Cracks in nanocomposites can heal during annealing Alumina and Al2O3/SiC nanocomposites are indented with a Vickers piramid to generate radial cracks After annealing at 1300 C in Ar for 2 h the material behave completely differently. Whereas cracks in alumina grow, cracks in nano composites close, thus explaining the strength increase of annealing nanocomposites.

Crack Deflection
The interactions of a crack front with secondphase inclusions, such as spherical particles in nanocomposites, depend on the differences in the thermo elastic properties of the matrix and inclusions. The toughening of the composite is a result of diminishing the stress intensity directly at the tip of the deflected crack. Niihara has proposed a toughening effect due to crack deflection caused by compressive residual stresses around the SiC particles.

Toughening
R-curves Concerning R curve effects one has to distinguish between mechanisms acting on the crack wedge behind the crack tip and mechanism acting directly at or in front of the crack tip. In nanocomposites any toughening effects acting on the crack wedge behind the crack tip are unlikely because of the lack of bridging elements

 By assuming the same initial flaw sizes and plateau toughness values, a higher strength can be achieved for a sharply rising R-curve.
Fig. 4 Schematically dependence of the toughness as a function of crack length by assuming a step and a flat rise for short crack lengths.

Grain boundary Strengthening Mechanism

Conceivable reasons for the grain boundary strengthening are: (1) Deflection of a crack running along a grain boundary at an SiC particle into the grain (2) Strengthening of the grain boundaries due to local internal stresses

Thermal expansion mismatch

The thermal expansion misfit stress, T, inside a single spherical inclusion in infinitematrix can be described by the following expression after Selsing:

Where E and v are Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio of the matrix (m) and the particles (p). The tangential, T, and the radial, T, stress distributions in the matrix around the particle are given by:

where r denotes the radius of the inclusion and x is the radial distance from the inclusion surface.

Average Internal Stress

The average residual micro stresses inside the matrix and the particles, m and p, are given by the following expressions:

Where

BCs
For Vf=0, above eqn provides the same value for the stresses inside the particles as the Selsing model. Another boundary condition is given by mechanical equilibrium with m (1Vf)+p Vf=0.

Local Stress Distribution

Summary

Metastable Phase Diagram

Another situation arises if the material in the massive state does not show polymorphism (see fig. 5). For example, if the phase is stable over the Whole range of temperature in massive bodies, decreasing the sample dimensions may give rise to the formation of the phase.

Hall Petch Effects

Pile-up of dislocations against grain boundaries, which results in a dependence of the hardening increment on the square root of the grain size D:
Where kHP is a constant. This is the classical Hall-Petch effect.

Limits to Hall-Petch behavior: Dislocation curvature Vs. Grain size

A clear limit for the occurrence of dislocation plasticity in a poly-crystal is given by the condition that at least one dislocation loop must fit into average grain

The characteristic length, i.e. the loop diameter, must now be compared with the grain size D as the relevant size parameter: (1)
or Where Td: line tension , D: Grain size (2)

Characteristic length (d) is a function of the size parameter (D). The resulting strength increment is given by:

The dislocation density scales inversely with grain size D, the obstacle spacing is L~1/p~D, which yields:

reduces correctly to Hall-Petch behavior for D >>r0

Because of the viscous behavior of amorphous materials (which can be considered the limiting case for grain refinement) the grain size strengthening effect will have to be reversed once the grain size D starts to approach the grain-boundary thickness b.

One possible explanation for such a softening effect comes from a reconsideration of the line tension Td in equation (2). the more refined expression

contains a lower (r0) and an upper (r1) cut-off distance for the stress field of the dislocation

Grain size strengthening, as explained by pile-ups of dislocation loops against grain boundaries (a). this mechanism must break down when the diameter d of the smallest loop no longer fits into a grain of size D (b). The limiting condition is shown as the heavy line in (c) where the shear strength is plotted schematically as a function of grain size D

The relation between yield stress and grain size is described mathematically by the Hall-Petch equation:

where y is the yield stress, o is a materials constant for the starting stress for dislocation movement (or the resistance of the lattice to dislocation motion), ky is the strengthening coefficient (a constant unique to each material), and d is the average grain diameter.

Hall-Petch Strengthening is limited by the size of dislocations. Once the grain size reaches about 10 nanometres (3.9107 in), grain boundaries start to slide.

Inverse Hall-Petch behavior in nanocrystalline Cu (H-H0) denotes the hardness increment, D the grain size): the classical behavior breaks down at a grain size of about 50 nm, in agreement with an estimate based on the loop diameter Replotted after Chokshi et al. [23].