Oxygen interstitials make metastable titanium alloys strong and ductile

Chong, Y.*; Gholizadeh, R.*; Guo, B.*; Tsuru, Tomohito; Zhao, G.*; Yoshida, Shuhei*; Mitsuhara, Masatoshi*; Godfrey, A.*; Tsuji, Nobuhiro*

Acta Materialia, 257, p.119165_1 - 119165_14, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2023.119165

Metastable titanium alloys possess excellent strain-hardening capability, but suffer from a low yield strength. As a result, numerous attempts have been made to strengthen this important structural material in the last decade. Here, we explore the contributions of grain refinement and interstitial additions in raising the yield strength of a Ti-12Mo (wt.%) metastable titanium alloy. Surprisingly, rather than strengthening the material, grain refinement actually lowers the ultimate tensile strength in this alloy. This unexpected and anomalous behavior is attributed to a significant enhancement in strain-induced martensite phase transformation, where in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction analysis reveals, for the first time, that this phase is much softer than the parent phase. Instead, a combination of both oxygen addition and grain refinement is found to realize an unprecedented strength-ductility synergy in a Ti-12Mo-0.3O (wt.%) alloy. The advantageous effect of oxygen solutes in this ternary alloy is twofold. Firstly, solute oxygen largely suppresses strain-induced transformation to the martensite phase, even in a fine-grained microstructure, thus avoiding the softening effect of excessive amounts of martensite. Secondly, oxygen solutes readily segregate to twin boundaries, as revealed by atom probe tomography. This restricts the growth of deformation twins, thereby promoting more extensive twin nucleation, leading to enhanced microstructural refinement. The insights from our work provide a cost-effective rationale for the design of strong yet tough metastable titanium alloys, with significant implications for more widespread use of this high strength-to-weight structural material.

Incommensurate nature of the antiferromagnetic order in GdCu

Kaneko, Koji; Tabata, Chihiro; Hagihara, Masato; Yamauchi, Hiroki; Kubota, Masato; Osakabe, Toyotaka; Onuki, Yoshichika*

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 92(8), p.085001_1 - 085001_2, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.92.085001

High temperature mechanical properties and microstructure in 9Cr or 12Cr oxide dispersion strengthened steels

Mitsuhara, Masatoshi*; Kurino, Koichi*; Yano, Yasuhide; Otsuka, Satoshi; Toyama, Takeshi*; Onuma, Masato*; Nakashima, Hideharu*

Tetsu To Hagane, 109(3), p.189 - 200, 2023/03

https://doi.org/10.2355/tetsutohagane.TETSU-2022-080

Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) ferritic steel, a candidate material for fast reactor fuel cladding, has low thermal expansion, good thermal conductivity, and excellent resistance to irradiation damage and high temperature strength. The origin of the excellent high-temperature strength lies in the dispersion of fine oxides. In this study, creep tests at 700 or 750C, which are close to the operating temperatures of fast reactors, and high-temperature tensile tests at 900 to 1350 C, which simulate accident conditions, were conducted on 9Cr ODS ferritic steels, M11 and MP23, and 12Cr ODS ferritic steel, F14, to confirm the growth behavior of oxides. In the M11 and F14 creep test samples, there was little oxide growth or decrease in number density from the initial state, indicating that dispersion strengthening by oxides was effective during deformation. After creep deformation of F14, the development of dislocation substructures such as dislocation walls and subgrain boundaries was hardly observed, and mobile dislocations were homogeneously distributed in the grains. The dislocation density increased with increasing stress during the creep test. In the high-temperature ring tensile tests of MP23 and F14, the strength of both steels decreased at higher temperatures. In MP23, elongation decreased with increasing test temperature from 900 to 1100 C, but increased at 1200 C, decreased drastically at 1250 C, and increased again at 1300 C. In F14, elongation decreased with increasing temperature. It was inferred that the formation of the -ferrite phase was responsible for this complex change in mechanical properties of MP23 from 1200 to 1300 C.

Spin gap in the weakly interacting quantum spin chain antiferromagnet KCuPOHO

Fujihara, Masayoshi; Hagihara, Masato; Morita, Katsuhiro*; Murai, Naoki; Koda, Akihiro*; Okabe, Hirotaka*; Mitsuda, Setsuo*

Physical Review B, 107(5), p.054435_1 - 054435_8, 2023/02

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.054435

The = 1/2 Heisenberg linear chain antiferromagnet is the simplest spin model; nevertheless it serves as a platform for various quantum many-body phenomena. Here, we report the magnetic behavior of a quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet KCuPOHO. A long-range commensurate antiferromagnetic order with ordered moment 0.31(1) per spin occurs at = 11.7(1) K. Above , the inelastic neutron excitation is characterized by a two spinon continuum. The intrachain interaction and interchain interaction are estimated to be 172 K and 4.25(4) K, respectively; thus the ratio of the / = 0.0247(3). At lower energies, below , a spin gap is observed in the dispersive excitations. These results are consistent with characteristics observed in weakly interacting = 1/2 Heisenberg chain system.

A Statistical approach for modelling the effect of hot press conditions on the mechanical strength properties of HTGR fuel elements

Aihara, Jun; Kuroda, Masatoshi*; Tachibana, Yukio

Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 9(4), p.21-00424_1 - 21-00424_13, 2022/08

https://doi.org/10.1299/mej.21-00424

It is important to improve oxidation resistance of fuel for huge oxygen ingress into core to improve safety of high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs), because almost volume of cores of HTGRs consist of graphite. In this study, simulated oxidation resistant fuel elements, of which matrix is mixture of SiC and graphite, has been fabricated by hot press method. In order to maintain structural integrity of fuel element under accident conditions, high-strength fuel elements should be developed. In order to identify optimal hot press conditions for preparing high-strength fuel elements, effect of hot press conditions on mechanical strength properties of fuel elements should be evaluated quantitatively. In the present study, response surface model, which represents relationship between hot press conditions and mechanical strength properties, has been constructed by introducing statistical design of experiments (DOE) approaches, and optimal hot press conditions were estimated by model.

Improvement of neutron diffraction at compact accelerator-driven neutron source RANS using peak profile deconvolution and delayed neutron reduction for stress measurements

Iwamoto, Chihiro*; Takamura, Masato*; Ueno, Kota*; Kataoka, Minami*; Kurihara, Ryo*; Xu, P. G.; Otake, Yoshie*

ISIJ International, 62(5), p.1013 - 1022, 2022/05

https://doi.org/10.2355/isijinternational.ISIJINT-2021-420

Magnetism of AlFeGeO with andalusite structure

Kakimoto, Kazuo*; Takada, Saki*; Ota, Hiroto*; Hayaguchi, Yuya*; Hagihara, Masato; Torii, Shuki*; Kamiyama, Takashi*; Mitamura, Hiroyuki*; Tokunaga, Masashi*; Hatakeyama, Atsushi*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 91(5), p.054704_1 - 054704_7, 2022/05

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.91.054704

Structural phase transition in cobalt oxyfluoride CoSbOF observed by high-resolution synchrotron and neutron diffraction

Shimono, Seiya*; Ishibashi, Hiroki*; Nagayoshi, Yusuke*; Ikeno, Hidekazu*; Kawaguchi, Shogo*; Hagihara, Masato; Torii, Shuki*; Kamiyama, Takashi*; Ichihashi, Katsuya*; Nishihara, Sadafumi*; et al.

Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, 163, p.110568_1 - 110568_7, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpcs.2021.110568

Contrasting magnetic structures in SrLaCuSbO and SrLaCuNbO; Spin- quasi-square-lattice - Heisenberg antiferromagnets

Watanabe, Masari*; Kurita, Nubuyuki*; Tanaka, Hidekazu*; Ueno, Wataru*; Matsui, Kazuki*; Goto, Takayuki*; Hagihara, Masato

Physical Review B, 105(5), p.054414_1 - 054414_12, 2022/02

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.054414

Development of dose estimation method using wild animal teeth for low dose exposure

Mitsuyasu, Yusuke*; Oka, Toshitaka; Takahashi, Atsushi*; Koarai, Kazuma; Kino, Yasushi*; Okutsu, Kenichi*; Sekine, Tsutomu*; Yamashita, Takuma*; Shimizu, Yoshinaka*; Chiba, Mirei*; et al.

KEK Proceedings 2021-2, p.91 - 96, 2021/12

We examined whether the ESR dose estimation method could be applied to wild Japanese macaque. In this work, we investigated the enamel preparation protocol and the analytical method of the ESR spectra.