Uppermost crustal structure regulates the flow of the Greenland Ice Sheet

The flow of the Greenland Ice Sheet is controlled by subglacial processes and conditions that depend on the geological provenance and temperature of the crust beneath it, neither of which are adequately known. Here we present a seismic velocity model of the uppermost 5 km of the Greenlandic crust. We show that slow velocities in the upper crust tend to be associated with major outlet glaciers along the ice-sheet margin, and elevated geothermal heat flux along the Iceland hotspot track inland. Outlet glaciers particularly susceptible to basal slip over deformable subglacial sediments include Jakobshavn, Helheim and Kangerdlussuaq, while geothermal warming and softening of basal ice may affect the onset of faster ice flow at Petermann Glacier and the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream. Interactions with the solid earth therefore control the past, present and future dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet and must be adequately explored and implemented in ice sheet models.

Hot tensile deformation behavior and microstructure evolution of Mg-1Al-6Y alloy

In this study, the hot tensile test was carried out using the extruded and annealed Mg-1Al-6Y alloy. The effect of temperature and strain rate on the hot tensile deformation behavior of the alloy was systematically studied at different temperatures (200 ℃ ~ 350 ℃) and different strain rates (8×10-5 s-1 ~ 1.6×10-3 s-1). In addition, the effect of temperature on the evolution of microstructure when the strain rate is 1.6×10-3 s-1 was investigated. The results showed that as the temperature increased or the strain rate decreased, the peak stress decreased and the elongation increased. Hot tensile at different temperatures all increased the texture intensity, and the microstructure after deformation showed obvious characteristics of basal fiber texture ([0001]⊥ED). Correspondingly, the weaker [-15-40]//ED texture before deformation transformed into a stronger [01-10]//ED fiber texture. After deformation, the average Schmid factor (SF) of each non-basal slip was significantly increased compared with the average SF before deformation, indicating that abundant non-basal slip was activated during the deformation. When the deformation temperature was 300 °C, dynamic recrystallization (DRX) occurred significantly, and the DRXed grains accounted for 15.9%. DRX was a combination of continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) and discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX). Furthermore, the calculated activation energy of the alloy was about 98.8 kJ/mol. Comprehensive research showed that the hot tensile deformation mechanism mainly included intragranular slip, grain boundary slip (GBS) and DRX.

Anisotropy in tensile behavior of an extruded Mg-4.50Zn-1.13Ca (wt.%) alloy

The present study investigated anisotropy in tensile behavior of an extruded Mg-4.50Zn-1.13Ca (wt.%) alloy through tensile testing along different tilt angles relative to the extrusion direction. Results showed that the as-extruded Mg-4.50Zn-1.13Ca (wt.%) alloy exhibited anisotropy in tensile behavior due to the formation of basal texture. Basal slip, prismatic slip and tensile twinning were the dominant deformation modes depending on the tensile direction. Prismatic slip was the dominant deformation mode for samples with small tilt angle (θ = 0° and 22.5°). Basal slip was activated when the tilt angle was increased, which also resulted in the decrease of yield strength. Tensile twinning was responsible for the yielding of the samples with high tilt angles (θ = 67.5° and 90°). The ductility was significantly reduced at high tilt angle, which was mainly attributed to the appearance of tensile twinning during tensile deformation.

Study on Microstructure and Mechanical Property in Mg-Gd-Y Alloy by Secondary Extrusion Process

Extruded Mg-Gd-Y alloy tubes were obtained by using cast ingot and extruded bar billets. Microstructure and mechanical properties were also studied with two different cooling methods: air cooling and water cooling. The result shows that by using an extruded bar as billet extruded tubes achieves higher elongation comparing to using cast ingots due to favored texture for the activation of basal slip. Using the water-cooling method, extruded tubes achieve a higher yield strength compared to the air cooling method due to their fine grain size. Using cast ingot billets and the water-cooling method, the elongation is only 6% due to large unrecrystallized grains caused by inhomogeneous deformation and unfavored texture for the activation of basal slip. Using the extruded bar billet and the water-cooling method, the tube has uniformed small grains and much more randomized texture caused by the inhibition of preferred grain growth process. The highest texture intensity is only 1.852 in this kind of tube. Both high yield strength (195.3 MPa) and high elongation (23.9%) are achieved in this tube.

Analysis of Nanoscratch Mechanism of C-Plane Sapphire with the Aid of Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Hcp Crystal

In this study, single groove nanoscratch experiments using a friction force microscope (FFM) with a monocrystalline diamond tip were conducted on a c-plane sapphire wafer to analyze the ductile-regime removal and deformation mechanism including the anisotropy. Various characteristics, such as scratch force, depth, and specific energy for each representative scratch direction on the c-plane of sapphire, were manifested by the FFM, and the results of the specific scratch energy showed a trend of six-fold symmetry on taking lower values than those of the other scratch directions when the scratch directions correspond to the basal slip directions as . Since this can be due to the effect of most probably basal slip or less probably basal twinning on the c-plane, a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of zinc, which is one of the hexagonal close-packed (hcp) crystals with similar slip/twining systems, was attempted to clarify the phenomena. The comparison results between the nanoscratch experiment and the MD simulation revealed that both the specific scratch energy and the burr height were minimized when scratched in the direction of the basal slip. Therefore, it was found that both the machining efficiency and the accuracy could be improved by scratching in the direction of the basal slip in the single groove nanoscratch of c-plane sapphire.