Emergence of crack tip plasticity in semi-brittle -Fe

Suzudo, Tomoaki; Ebihara, Kenichi; Tsuru, Tomohito; Mori, Hideki*

Journal of Applied Physics, 135(7), p.075102_1 - 075102_7, 2024/02

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0178940

Fracture of body centred cubic (bcc) metals and alloys below the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature is brittle. This is theoretically explained by the notion that the critical stress intensity factor of a given crack front for brittle fracture is smaller than that for plasticdeformation; hence, brittle fracture is chosen over plastic deformation. Although this view is true from a macroscopic point of view, such brittle fracture is always accompanied by small-scale plastic deformation in the vicinity of the crack tip, i.e. crack tip plasticity. This short paper investigates the origin of this plasticity using atomistic modeling with a recently developed machine-learning interatomic potential of -Fe. The computational results identified the precursor of crack tip plasticity, i.e. the group of activated atoms dynamically nucleated by fast crack propagation.

Cleavages along {110} in bcc iron emit dislocations from the curved crack fronts

Suzudo, Tomoaki; Ebihara, Kenichi; Tsuru, Tomohito; Mori, Hideki*

Scientific Reports (Internet), 12, p.19701_1 - 19701_10, 2022/11

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-24357-5

Body-centered-cubic (bcc) transition metals, such as -Fe and W, cleave along the {100} plane, even though the surface energy is the lowest along the {110} plane. To unravel the mechanism of this odd response, large-scale atomistic simulations of curved cleavage cracks of -Fe were conducted in association with stress intensity factor analyses of straight crack fronts using an interatomic potential created by an artificial neural network technique. The study provides novel findings: Dislocations are emitted from the crack fronts along the {110} cleavage plane, and this phenomenon explains why the {100} plane can be the cleavage plane. However, the simple straight crack-front analyses did not yield the same conclusion. It is suggested that atomistic modeling, at sufficiently large scales to capture the inherent complexities of materials using highly accurate potentials, is necessary to correctly predict the mechanical strength. The method adopted in this study is generally applicable to the cleavage problem of bcc transition metals and alloys.

TEM observation and MD simulation of frank partial dislocation climbing in Al-Cu alloy

Chen, J.*; Yoshida, Kenta*; Suzudo, Tomoaki; Shimada, Yusuke*; Inoue, Koji*; Konno, Toyohiko*; Nagai, Yasuyoshi*

Materials Transactions, 63(4), p.468 - 474, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.2320/matertrans.MT-M2021233

In situ electron irradiation using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) was performed to visualize the Frank loop evolution in aluminium-copper (Al-Cu) alloy with an atomic-scale spatial resolution of 0.12 nm. The HRTEM observation along the [110] direction of the FCC-Al lattice, Frank partial dislocation bounding an intrinsic stacking fault exhibited an asymmetrical climb along the 112 direction opposed to those in the reference pure Al under an electron irradiation, with a corresponding displacement-per-atom rate of 0.055-0.120 dpa/s. The asymmetrical climb of the partial dislocation was described as pinning effects due to Cu-Cu bonding in Guinier-Preston zones by a molecular dynamics simulation.

Atomistic modeling of hardening in spinodally-decomposed Fe-Cr binary alloys

Suzudo, Tomoaki; Takamizawa, Hisashi; Nishiyama, Yutaka; Caro, A.*; Toyama, Takeshi*; Nagai, Yasuyoshi*

Journal of Nuclear Materials, 540, p.152306_1 - 152306_10, 2020/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2020.152306

Spinodal decomposition in thermally aged Fe-Cr alloys leads to significant hardening, which is the direct cause of the so-called 475C-embrittlement. To illustrate how spinodal decomposition induces hardening by atomistic interactions, we conducted a series of numerical simulations as well as reference experiments. The numerical results indicated that the hardness scales linearly with the short-range order (SRO) parameter, while the experimental result reproduced this relationship within statistical error. Both seemingly suggest that neighboring Cr-Cr atomic pairs essentially cause hardening, because SRO is by definition uniquely dependent on the appearance probability of such pairs. A further numerical investigation supported this notion, as it suggests that the dominant cause of hardening is the pinning effect of dislocations passing over such Cr-Cr pairs.

WB-STEM observation of dislocation loop behavior in reactor pressure vessel steel during post-irradiation annealing

Du, Y.*; Yoshida, Kenta*; Shimada, Yusuke*; Toyama, Takeshi*; Inoue, Koji*; Arakawa, Kazuto*; Suzudo, Tomoaki; Milan, K. J.*; Gerard, R.*; Onuki, Somei*; et al.

Materialia, 12, p.100778_1 - 100778_10, 2020/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtla.2020.100778

In order to ensure the integrity of the reactor pressure vessel in the long term, it is necessary to understand the effects of irradiation on the materials. In this study, irradiation-induced dislocation loops were observed in neutron-irradiated reactor pressure vessel specimens during annealing using our newly developed WB-STEM. It was confirmed that the proportion of loops increased with increasing annealing temperature. We also succeeded in observing the phenomenon that two loops collide into a loop. Moreover, a phenomenon in which dislocation loops decorate dislocations was also observed, and the mechanism was successfully explained by molecular dynamics simulation.

Atomistic simulation of phosphorus segregation to 3(111) symmetrical tilt grain boundary in -iron

Ebihara, Kenichi; Suzudo, Tomoaki

Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering, 26(6), p.065005_1 - 065005_10, 2018/09

AA2018-0168.pdf:2.74MB

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-651X/aace6a

Irradiation-induced grain boundary phosphorus segregation is an important factor for estimating the embrittlement of nuclear reactor pressure vessel steels, but the physical process of phosphorus migration to grain boundaries is still unclear. We numerically studied phosphorus migration toward 3(111) symmetrical tilt grain boundary in -iron using molecular dynamics. We found that, in the vicinity of the grain boundary within 1 nm distance, an iron-phosphorus mixed dumbbell and an octahedral interstitial phosphorus atom push a self-interstitial atom into the grain boundary, and the phosphorus atom becomes a substitutional atom. A phosphorus vacancy complex in the region also becomes dissociated, and the vacancy is absorbed in the grain boundary without dragging phosphorus. The results claim that a novel view of the segregation process is required.

Molecular dynamics simulation of telomeric single-stranded DNA and POT1

Kaburagi, Masaaki; Yamada, Hironao*; Miyakawa, Takeshi*; Morikawa, Ryota*; Takasu, Masako*; Kato, Takamitsu*; Uesaka, Mitsuru*

Polymer Journal, 48(2), p.189 - 195, 2016/02

AA2015-0476.pdf:1.08MB

https://doi.org/10.1038/pj.2015.82

We performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of telomeric single-stranded DNA and POT1 for 100 ns. The distance between (POT1) and O5' (telomeric ssDNA) is calculated to verify the binding system for 100 ns MD. We then calculated the distance between the bases of telomeric DNA ends and the root mean square deviation and gyration radius in single and binding states. We compared the root mean square fluctuations between single and binding states and calculated the number of hydrogen bonds between POT1 and telomeric DNA. There are many hydrogen bonds between Gln94 and the first guanine of the closest TTAGGG sequence in telomeric single-stranded DNA. These Gln94 and the guanine have a large difference in root mean square fluctuation between single and binding states. We found that Gln94 and guanine are important components of the binding system, and they are related to its stability.

Parallel molecular-dynamics simulation on ITBL

Shimizu, Futoshi; Kadoyoshi, Tomoko; Kaburaki, Hideo; Yamagishi, Nobuhiro*; Hasegawa, Yukihiro*; Higuchi, Kenji

Keisan Kogaku Koenkai Rombunshu, 8(2), p.801 - 804, 2003/05

no abstracts in English

Short-range structure of vitreous PO by MD simulation

Suzuki, Yoshihiro*; Takase, Keiichi*; Akiyama, Isao*; Suzuya, Kentaro; Umesaki, Norimasa*; Otori, Norikazu*

Materials Transactions, 42(11), p.2242 - 2246, 2001/11

https://doi.org/10.2320/matertrans.42.2242

We have performed the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for vitreous PO using isotropic pair potentials composed only of coulombic and repulsive interaction. The obtained P-O pair distribution function reproduced the two peaks expected from the results of neutron diffraction experiments, in the nearest-neighbor P-O correlation. The neutron-weighted real-space correlation function were also in semi-quantitative agreement with that from the experimental results. The distribution of coordination number for O around P and P around O showed that most P atoms form tetrahedral PO units in the glass and three-fifths of O atoms are bridging oxygen, O, and the others are terminal one, O. The pair distribution functions for P-O and P-O clarified the PO units have three long P-O bonds and one short P-O bond. We have concluded that the short-range structure for vitreous PO agrees well with the picture derived from many experiments.

Distinct dissociation kinetics among ion pairs; Solvent-coordinate free-energy landscape analysis

Yonetani, Yoshiteru

no journal, ,