Silica Additions and the Performance of PTC Thermistors

2006 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 2362-2370
Author(s):  
Colin Leach ◽  
M. Zubair ◽  
Robert Freer

A series of PTC thermistors, based on BaTiO3, doped with Ca, Mn and Y, were prepared with additions of SiO2 at levels of 0, 1, 2 and 3 at. %. The effect of the SiO2 additions and cooling rate on microstructural development and bulk performance were characterised using a combination of SEM, EBSD, and R-T experiments. It was found that the addition of SiO2 increased grain size marginally, and decreased sample density by reducing the amount of grain-grain contact. The addition of SiO2 also modified the distribution of grain boundary types by systematically decreasing the proportion of low-Σ grain boundaries within the microstructure. Electrical behaviour was modified by adding SiO2 or increasing the sample cooling rates; in both cases there was an increase in ρ25 and a decrease in ρmax, with ρmax also being displaced to higher temperatures.

2013 ◽  
Vol 302 ◽  
pp. 286-291
Author(s):  
Yan Cui ◽  
Ai Min Ji ◽  
Yun Li Feng ◽  
Rui Zhen Wang ◽  
Qi Long Yong

The grain boundary segregation of carbon atoms is influenced by grain size and annealing condition. Increasing grain size and improving the final cooling ( <400 oC) rate can improve the bake hardening property, due to the decreasing of carbon segregation at grain boundaries. Cooling rates have a great effect on bake hardening property of ULC steel with smaller grains


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-85
Author(s):  
K. M. Borysovska ◽  
◽  
N. M. Marchenko ◽  
Yu. M. Podrezov ◽  
S. O. Firstov ◽  
...  

The (DD) method was used to model the formation of the plastic zone of the top of the cracks in polycrystalline molybdenum. Special attention was paid to take into account the interaction of dislocations in the plastic zone with grain boundaries. Structural sensitivity of fracture toughness was analyzed under brittle-ductile condition. Simulations were performed for a range of grain sizes from 400 to 100 μm, at which a sudden increase in fracture toughness with a decrease of grain size was experimentally shown. We calculated the value of K1c taking into account the shielding action of dislocations. The position of all dislocations in the plastic zone at fracture moment was calculated. Based on these data, we obtained the dependences of dislocation density on the distance from the crack tip thereby confirming significant influence of the grain boundaries on plastic zone formation. At large grain sizes, when the plastic zone does not touch the boundary, the distribution of dislocations remained unchanged. As grains reduce their size to size of the plastic zone, they start formating a dislocation pile – up near the boundaries. Dislocations on plastic zone move slightly toward the crack tip, but the density of dislocations in the middle of the grain remains unchanged, and fracture toughness remains almost unchanged. Further reduction of the grain size leads to the Frank-Reed source activation on the grain boundary Forming dislocation pile-up of the neighbor grains. Its stress concentration acts on dislocations of the first grain and causes redistribution of plastic zone dislocations. If the reduction in grain size is not enough to form a strong pile-up, density of dislocations on plastic zone increases slightly and crack resistance increases a few percent. Further reduction of grains promotes strong pile-up, dislocations move to crack tip, and its density on plastic zone increases. Crack is shielded and fracture toughness increases sharply. The calculation showed that the fracture toughness jump is observed at grain sizes of 100—150 μm, in good agreement with the experiment. Keywords: dislocation dynamics simulation, molybdenum, fracture toughness, grain size, plastic zone, brittle-ductile transition.


2002 ◽  
Vol 727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Champion ◽  
P. Langlois ◽  
S. Guérin-Mailly ◽  
C. Langlois ◽  
M. J. Hÿtch

AbstractUnderstanding the mechanical behaviour of metallic nanostructures is a key issue for their development. On the one hand, knowledge of the plastic behaviour at various temperatures is essential to control the synthesis, forming, and machining of such materials. Equally, a clear understanding of atomic and mesoscopic mechanisms, involving defects and their interactions, is essential for the control of ageing and functional properties. Regarding plastic deformation at room temperature, there is now evidence for unusual behaviour in nanostructured metals. In addition to high resistance and ductility, tensile testing reveals peculiar elasto-plastic deformation. Such behaviour was initially attributed to grain-boundary sliding. However, intergranular areas (including triple junctions) may possess special properties compared to their microcrystalline counterparts. For example, low activation energies have been measured for grain-boundary diffusion and it has been observed that grain-boundaries may act as dislocation sources and nucleation sites for deformation twinning.In this paper, we report on analysis on bulk copper nanostructures. Grain-boundaries are studied, by cross-correlating information from mechanical tensile testing and structural analysis, including X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Macroscopic bulk specimens (with grain size of about 80 nm) are prepared by powder metallurgy techniques, modified to fit to the special properties of nanocrystalline powders. Processing includes coldisostatic pressing, sintering and differential extrusion. The powders used (grain size of 40 nm) are synthesised by evaporation and cryo-condensation of a metallic vapour within liquid nitrogen. Results on mechanical testing and structural analysis will be reported. Emphasis will be placed on the structure of grain-boundaries (type of grain-boundary, grain-boundary thickness) studied by TEM and high resolution TEM image analysed using the geometric phase technique. The nanostructure was revealed to be consist in agglomerate of nano-size grains separated by low angle grain-boundaries. Agglomerates are themselves separerated by general high angle boundaries. These observations will then be related to the unusual mechanical true stress-true strain curves of the metallic nanostructures.


Solid Earth ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 1193-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gilgannon ◽  
Florian Fusseis ◽  
Luca Menegon ◽  
Klaus Regenauer-Lieb ◽  
Jim Buckman

Abstract. Establishing models for the formation of well-mixed polyphase domains in ultramylonites is difficult because the effects of large strains and thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical feedbacks can obscure the transient phenomena that may be responsible for domain production. We use scanning electron microscopy and nanotomography to offer critical insights into how the microstructure of a highly deformed quartzo-feldspathic ultramylonite evolved. The dispersal of monomineralic quartz domains in the ultramylonite is interpreted to be the result of the emergence of synkinematic pores, called creep cavities. The cavities can be considered the product of two distinct mechanisms that formed hierarchically: Zener–Stroh cracking and viscous grain-boundary sliding. In initially thick and coherent quartz ribbons deforming by grain-size-insensitive creep, cavities were generated by the Zener–Stroh mechanism on grain boundaries aligned with the YZ plane of finite strain. The opening of creep cavities promoted the ingress of fluids to sites of low stress. The local addition of a fluid lowered the adhesion and cohesion of grain boundaries and promoted viscous grain-boundary sliding. With the increased contribution of viscous grain-boundary sliding, a second population of cavities formed to accommodate strain incompatibilities. Ultimately, the emergence of creep cavities is interpreted to be responsible for the transition of quartz domains from a grain-size-insensitive to a grain-size-sensitive rheology.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramos A. Mitsuo ◽  
Martínez F. Elizabeth ◽  
Negrete S. Jesús ◽  
Torres-Villaseñor G.

ABSTRACTZinalco alloy (Zn-21mass%Al-2mass%Cu) specimens were deformed superplastically with a strain rate (ε) of 1×10-3 s-1 at homologous temperature (TH) of 0.68 (5 ). It was observed neck formation that indicate nonhomegeneus deformation. Grain size and grain boundaries misorientation changes, due superplastic deformation, were characterized by Orientation Imagining Microscopy (OIM) technique. It was studied three regions in deformed specimens and the results were compared with the results for a specimen without deformation. Average grain size of 1 mm was observed in non-deformed specimen and a fraction of 82% for grain boundary misorientation angles with a grain boundaries angles between 15° and 55° was found. For deformed specimen, the fraction of angles between 15° and 55° was decreced to average value of 75% and fractions of low angle (<5°) and high angle (>55°) misorientations were 10% and 15% respectively. The grain size and high fraction of grain boundary misorientation angles between 15° and 55° observed in the alloy without deformation, are favorable for grain rotation and grain boundary sliding (GBS) procces. The changes observed in the fraction of favorable grain boundary angles during superplastic deformation, shown that the superplastic capacity of Zinalco was reduced with the deformation.


1989 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Jendrich ◽  
H. J. Möller

AbstractThe precipitation of copper and (radioactive) cobalt at low energy grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon and bicrystals is investigated. The metals are diffused in from a surface source between 800 - 1000 °C and the precipitation after cooling down is studied by TEM (for Cu) and Mößbauer spectroscopy (for Co). The precipitates are metal suicides. For copper it is shown that they appear in form of colonies containing hundreds of precipitates with a particle size between 5-60 nm. In the grain boundary they nucleate preferentially at dislocations and steps. The distribution and size of the precipitates depend on the cooling rate after the diffusion. In the vicinity of the grain boundary the volume is depleted from the impurities.


2007 ◽  
Vol 558-559 ◽  
pp. 675-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lasar S. Shvindlerman ◽  
Günter Gottstein

Three recent investigations in the field of thermodynamics of grain boundaries and grain boundary junctions are presented. 1. The grain boundary excess free volume (BFV) along with the surface tension belongs to the major thermodynamic properties of grain boundaries. A special technique, recently developed, makes it possible to measure the BFV for practically any grain boundary and provides a way of estimating the grain boundary excess free volume for grain boundaries of different classes with rather high accuracy. The experimental values of the BFV measured for different grain boundaries are compared and discussed. 2. A new approach will be presented that makes it possible to correctly measure the grain boundary triple line tension. For this the topography at an equilibrated triple junction was measured by atomic force microscopy. Preliminary results of grain boundary triple line energy measurements are presented. 3. The problem is discussed whether it is possible to achieve an equilibrium grain size during grain growth in single phase alloys. Various approaches to the problem are considered. It is shown that the most realistic possibility to stabilize the grain size in a polycrystal is by impurities with negative grain boundary adsorption.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (22) ◽  
pp. 6966
Author(s):  
Qian Li ◽  
Jiayong Zhang ◽  
Huayuan Tang ◽  
Hongwu Zhang ◽  
Hongfei Ye ◽  
...  

Based on molecular dynamics simulations, the creep behaviors of nanocrystalline Ni before and after the segregation of Mo atoms at grain boundaries are comparatively investigated with the influences of external stress, grain size, temperature, and the concentration of Mo atoms taken into consideration. The results show that the creep strain rate of nanocrystalline Ni decreases significantly after the segregation of Mo atoms at grain boundaries due to the increase of the activation energy. The creep mechanisms corresponding to low, medium, and high stress states are respectively diffusion, grain boundary slip and dislocation activities based on the analysis of stress exponent and grain size exponent for both pure Ni and segregated Ni-Mo samples. Importantly, the influence of external stress and grain size on the creep strain rate of segregated Ni-Mo samples agrees well with the classical Bird-Dorn-Mukherjee model. The results also show that segregation has little effect on the creep process dominated by lattice diffusion. However, it can effectively reduce the strain rate of the creep deformation dominated by grain boundary behaviors and dislocation activities, where the creep rate decreases when increasing the concentration of Mo atoms at grain boundaries within a certain range.


Author(s):  
Eswarahalli Venkatesh

In recent years many researchers have shown great interest in understanding the structure of grain boundaries1,2 and their influence on the mechanical properties of metals and alloys3-5. It has been shown that the structure of grain boundaries can be changed by appropriate thermomechanical treatments6. There are many experimental parameters that can influence the grain boundary ledge structure. The influence of annealing temperature and grain size are considered here.In the present work, pure (99.98%) nickel sheet mill rolled (hot) to 0.022 in. thick was used. One batch of sample was cut and rolled to 40% reduction in thickness and annealed at 800-1125°K in argon,and air cooled to achieve a constant grain size of 50 μm in all samples. A second set of samples was cut and rolled 10-70% reduction in thickness and similarly annealed at 800-1325°K so as to obtain different samples with grain size of 2, 30, 50, and 150 μm.


1989 ◽  
Vol 147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry A. Atwater ◽  
Walter L. Brown

AbstractAmorphous Si is nucleated heterogeneously at grain boundaries during irradiation of polycrystalline Si by 1.5 MeV Xe+ ions for temperatures of 150–225°C. Following formation at grain boundaries, the amorphous Si layer grows at a rate comparable to the growth rate of a pre-existing amorphous-crystal interface, resulting in a decrease in average grain size and a marked change in the grain size distribution. The heterogeneous nucleation kinetics of amorphous Si are strongly dependent on grain boundary structure. A simple atomistic model for amorphous phase formation, which suggests that the nucleation kinetics are dependent on the point defect mobilities and grain boundary structure, is related to the experimental results.


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