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A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites exhibiting high strain rate superplasticity
Shuichi Wadaa)
Departments of Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1453

Mamoru Mabuchi
National Industrial Research Institute, Hirate-cho, Kita-ku, Nagoya 462, Japan

Kenji Higashi
Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, Osaka Prefecture University, Sakai, Osaka 593, Japan

Terence G. Langdon
Departments of Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1453 (Received 23 October 1995; accepted 28 March 1996)

Specimens of two AlCuMg (2124) composites, reinforced with 20 vol % of either Si3 N4 particulates or Si3 N4 whiskers, were tested under experimental conditions close to those for optimum high strain rate superplasticity. Both composites developed extensive internal cavitation during testing, but quantitative measurements show that signicant cavity growth occurs throughout the test in the whisker-reinforced composite, but only at strains >1.0 in the particulate-reinforced composite. This difference in behavior is attributed to differences in the extent of a discontinuous liquid phase at the grain boundaries and at the matrix/reinforcement interfaces. It is concluded that the presence of an extensive liquid phase in the particulate-reinforced composite is benecial for attaining high ductility because it relieves the stress concentrations from grain boundary sliding and thereby limits the growth of cavities.

I. INTRODUCTION

The high ductilities associated with superplasticity are usually achieved at strain rates of the order of 1023 s21 , and there are decreases in the measured elongations to failure at both slower and faster strain rates.1,2 However, these superplastic strain rates are low for utilization in industrial-forming operations, thereby limiting the commercial viability of many superplastic alloys. The possibility of achieving high strain rate (HSR) superplasticity was rst demonstrated by Nieh and co-workers3 using an Al CuMg (2124) composite reinforced with 20 vol % of SiC whiskers, where tensile elongations of up to 300% were obtained at a temperature of 798 K using a strain rate of 3.3 3 1021 s21 . Subsequently, Nieh et al.4 reported similar tensile elongations at a strain rate of 6.7 3 1021 s21 in a mechanically alloyed aluminum IN-9021 alloy. To date, there have been numerous reports of superplastic ductility at high strain rates in a range of mechanically alloyed
a)

Present address: Mechanical Engineering Department, Sony Corporation, Osaki Technology Center, 2-10-14 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141, Japan.
J. Mater. Res., Vol. 11, No. 7, Jul 1996

aluminum alloys and in both whisker- and particulatereinforced aluminum matrix composites; much of this work has been reviewed elsewhere.57 When superplasticity is observed at normal strain rates, of the order of 1023 s21 , it is generally recognized that grain boundary sliding accounts essentially for all of the deformation8 and the superplastic process arises from the movement of extrinsic dislocations along the grain boundaries and the accommodation of this sliding by intragranular slip.9 However, superplasticity at high strain rates appears to take place by a markedly different process. Many of the experimental observations of HSR superplasticity were obtained at temperatures that are close to, or even slightly above, the solidus temperature for the metal matrix. This observation led to the development by Nieh et al.10 of a rheological model in which HSR superplasticity occurs in a semi-solid material behaving like a non-Newtonian uid. Although this model appears attractive, it fails to account for several experimental observations, including (i) the continuity in the mechanical properties of an Al Cu Mg (2124) composite reinforced with SiC whiskers when tested across the solidus temperature,11 (ii) the lack of a high tensile ductility in an unreinforced 2124 Al alloy when tested
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S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

above the solidus temperature,12 and (iii) the decrease in the measured tensile elongations in particulate- and whisker-reinforced Al CuMg (2124) composites when tested at the highest experimental strain rates.13 To avoid these difculties, an alternative model was proposed in which it is assumed that grain boundary sliding is the dominant deformation process, as in normal superplasticity, but with the presence of a liquid phase at the matrix/reinforcement interfaces serving both to relieve the stress concentrations due to sliding and to restrict the buildup of internal cavitation and subsequent failure by cavity interlinkage.13,14 This model is supported by direct experimental evidence, using differential scanning calorimetry and in situ transmission electron microscopy at elevated temperatures, for local melting at the interfaces in the vicinity of the optimum superplastic temperature.15 Although this model speculates on the ability of a liquid phase to limit the development of internal cavitation, information on the level of cavitation occurring during HSR superplasticity is at present limited to an Al MgSi (6061) alloy reinforced with 20 vol % of Si3 N4 particulates1618 and a mechanically alloyed IN9021 aluminum composite containing 15 vol % of SiC particulates.16 The present investigation was initiated in order to alleviate this deciency.
II. EXPERIMENTAL MATERIALS AND PROCEDURES

The experiments were conducted using an Al Cu Mg (2124) alloy reinforced with 20% volume fraction of either a Si3 N4 particulates or b Si3 N4 whiskers, respectively. The Si3 N4 particulates had an average diameter of 1.0 mm and the Si3 N4 whiskers had diameters in the range of 0.1 1.5 mm and initial lengths of 10 50 mm. The composites were prepared by ultrasonically mixing the alloy powder and the reinforcement in an alcohol solvent, drying, and compressing in vacuum at 873 K for 20 min under a pressure of 390 MPa, and then extruding at 733 K using a reduction ratio of 100 : 1. Inspection of the composites by transmission electron microscopy prior to testing revealed no evidence for any internal cavitation or cracking; typical microstructures are shown in Figs. 1(a) and 1(b) for the whisker- and particulate-reinforced composites, respectively. The average grain sizes were 2 mm with the particulate reinforcement and 4 mm with the whisker reinforcement. Tensile testing was conducted in air under conditions of constant true strain rate using specimens machined from the extruded bars, parallel to the extrusion direction, with gauge lengths and diameters of 5 and 2 mm, respectively. An earlier report13 described the mechanical behavior of these composites over a
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FIG. 1. Typical microstructures of (a) whisker-reinforced and ( b) particulate-reinforced Al Cu Mg composites.

range of temperatures and strain rates and, for convenience, Fig. 2 documents the elongations achieved for the particulate-reinforced (upper) and the whisker-reinforced (lower) composites, respectively. From inspection of these results, the following experimental conditions were selected for the cavitation study: an absolute testing , of temperature, T , of 788 K and a strain rate, e 4 3 1022 s21 for the Al CuMg composite reinforced with Si3 N4 particulates, and a testing temperature of 798 K and a strain rate of 1 3 1021 s21 for the Al CuMg composite reinforced with Si3 N4 whiskers. Using these experimental conditions, the two composites in the present experiments exhibited superplastic-like ow with elongations to failure of 840% and 250%, respectively. For the composite containing particulates, the extent of cavitation was measured in a specimen pulled to fracture at a true strain of 2.24 and in separate specimens pulled under the same experimental conditions to true strains from 0.25 to 2.0; for the composite containing whiskers, cavitation was measured in a specimen

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S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

temperature to 873 K using samples of 10 mg heated at a constant rate of 10 K min21 .

III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS A. Cavitation studies

Figures 3(a) and 3(b) show, for the particulate- and whisker-reinforced composites, the number of cavities per unit area plotted against the true strain for specimens tested to various strains and to failure. Inspection shows that both composites attain an area density at failure close to 103 mm22 , but cavity growth appears to be inhibited during the early stages of deformation in the particulate-reinforced material. This trend may be documented by replotting the data of Fig. 3 in the normalized form of NiNf , as shown in Fig. 4, where Ni and Nf are the instantaneous number of cavities and

FIG. 2. Elongation versus strain rate at various testing temperatures for particulate-reinforced (upper) and whisker-reinforced (lower) Al Cu Mg composites.13

fractured at a true strain of 1.25 and in specimens pulled to true strains from 0.25 to 1.0. In the unfractured specimens, the local strains were determined at intervals of 1 mm along the gauge lengths, and the cavity measurements were taken in the regions of maximum local strain. For the measurements of cavitation, the gauge lengths of the specimens were polished on SiC papers and on alumina powders, and the specimens were examined without etching using an optical microscope connected through a video camera to an image monitor and a personal computer. Appropriate software was used to obtain quantitative information on the size and shape of individual cavities; a detailed description of the measurement procedure was given earlier,19 and experimental examples of the use of this technique were presented for small-grained superplastic materials20,21 and large-grained creep specimens.22 In the present experiments, measurements were taken to determine the total number of cavities within a selected area, together with the area, perimeter, and maximum diameter of each cavity where the maximum diameter is dened as the longest separation between any two points on the perimeter. As in earlier studies,19 measurements were recorded for all cavities having areas of >1 mm2 ; smaller cavities were excluded from the study because of problems associated with extraneous artifacts. The occurrence of partial melting was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The DSC measurements covered a temperature range from room

(a)

( b)
FIG. 3. Number of cavities versus true strain for (a) particulatereinforced and (b) whisker-reinforced composites.
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S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

(a)

(a)

( b)
FIG. 4. Normalized number of cavities versus true strain for (a) particulate-reinforced and ( b) whisker-reinforced composites.

( b)
FIG. 5. Histograms showing the distribution of cavity areas for (a) particulate-reinforced and ( b) whisker-reinforced composites.

the number of cavities at fracture, respectively. These plots demonstrate that there is little or no change in the normalized cavity density in the particulate-reinforced material up to a true strain of the order of 1.0, whereas there is essentially a linear increase with increasing strain in the whisker-reinforced material. More information on cavity development may be obtained by measuring the areas of the individual cavities. Figure 5 shows the distributions of cavity areas, in increments of 5 mm2 , for various true strains, e , up to the points of failure. These plots conrm that the specimens taken to higher stains contain larger cavities. However, it is apparent also that the number of cavities within any selected area range, including the smallest areas, tends to increase with increasing true strain and, for the particulate-reinforced composite, there is no signicant
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difference in the distribution of areas for the specimens pulled to the three lowest true strains of 0.251.0. These measurements demonstrate, for the whisker-reinforced composite at all strains and for the particulate-reinforced composite at true strains >1.0, that there is both a continuous nucleation of cavities and a concomitant growth in the existing cavities. (Inspection of Fig. 5(a) shows also a decrease in the total number of cavities in the area range from 5 to 40 mm2 for the specimen pulled to failure by comparison with the specimens pulled to true strains of 1.5 and 2.0. This trend arises because of cavity interlinkage immediately prior to nal failure.) It is convenient to dene a roundness coefcient as 4p Area(Perimeter)2 , where a perfect circle gives a coefcient of 1 and the values of the coefcient become progressively smaller than 1 as the shape deviates further

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S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

B. Differential scanning calorimetry

(a)

Earlier experiments using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), conducted on the 2124 Al alloy reinforced with Si3 N4 particulates, established the presence of a sharp endothermic peak, indicating partial melting, at a temperature of 784 K.15 This temperature is slightly below the present testing temperature of 788 K, and it serves to suggest that the particulatereinforced composite may contain a liquid phase during the tensile testing. In order to check on the presence of endothermic peaks in the two composites used in these experiments, Fig. 8 shows examples of DSC scans for (a) the particulate-reinforced 2124 Al matrix composite and ( b) the whisker-reinforced 2124 Al matrix composite. Inspection conrms the presence of a very sharp endothermic peak at 784 K in the particulate-reinforced composite but, by contrast, there is no evidence for the occurrence of an endothermic peak in the composite reinforced with Si3 N4 whiskers.
IV. DISCUSSION A. Comparison of the composites with conventional superplastic metals

( b)
FIG. 6. Normalized number of cavities versus roundness coefcient for (a) particulate-reinforced and ( b) whisker-reinforced composites.

from a circular cross section. Figure 6 gives histograms of the roundness coefcients for true strains of 0.25 and at failure for the two different composites. These plots show that, contrary to experimental observations on typical superplastic metals tested at slow strain rates of the order of 1024 s21 ,21 there are only a very small number of cavities having roundness coefcients in the range of 0.9 1.0. The orientation of a cavity if dened as the angle between the maximum diameter and the tensile axis. Figure 7 shows the distributions of orientations for the same specimens as in Fig. 6. These results demonstrate that many of the cavities lie at angles of .80 to the tensile axis at both low strains and at failure. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the cavities tend to grow preferentially, and ultimately to link, in a direction which lies essentially perpendicular to the tensile axis.

Quantitative measurements are now available showing cavity development in conventional superplastic metals, and it is therefore appropriate to compare the present results with data obtained from alloys tested at superplastic strain rates in the vicinity of 1023 s21 . The dominant features of conventional superplastic metals are generally as follows: (i) The extent of cavitation increases throughout the test (for example, for a superplastic Al 6% Cu0.5% Zr alloy23 and the Zn 22% Al eutectoid alloy24 ). These results are similar to the whisker-reinforced composite [Fig. 4(b)], but the particulate-reinforced composite shows no measurable increase in the extent of cavitation up to strains of 1.0 [Fig. 4(a)]. (ii) The experimental evidence for conventional superplastic metals suggests a continuous nucleation of cavities with increasing strain,23 and this trend is conrmed also by the results for the two composites (Fig. 5). (iii) There is a decrease in the roundness coefcient with increasing strain (for example, in a superplastic Al 6% Cu0.5% Zr alloy19,23 ); this trend has been attributed both to interlinkage at the higher strains and to a decrease in the role of growth by the absorption of vacancies. A similar trend is evident for the particulatereinforced composite [Fig. 6(a)], but there are very few rounded cavities in the whisker-reinforced composite even at the low total strain of 0.25 [Fig. 6(b)]. (iv) In conventional superplastic metals, the cavities often become elongated along the tensile axis at the
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S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

(a)

FIG. 8. DSC scans for 2124 Al matrix alloy reinforced with (a) Si3 N4 particulates and (b) Si3 N4 whiskers.

( b)
FIG. 7. Normalized number of cavities versus orientation for (a) particulate-reinforced and ( b) whisker-reinforced composites.

higher strains producing stringers of cavities with orientations close to 0 (for example, in the Al 6% Cu0.5% Zr alloy23 ). This trend is not apparent in either of the 2124 Al matrix composites, and instead the cavities grow and coalesce perpendicular to the tensile axis (Fig. 7).
B. Comparison of the particulate and whisker reinforced AlCuMg (2124)

The experiments in this study were conducted at temperatures of 788 and 798 K for the particulate- and whisker-reinforced composites, respectively. However, experimental studies using DSC scans have shown that there may be signicant variations in the partial melting temperatures of extruded composites by comparison with the extruded matrix material25,26 and, in addition, there may be differences in the onset temperatures for
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partial melting in particulate- and whisker-reinforced composites because of differences in the nature of the segregation at the matrix-reinforcement interfaces.25,26 The DSC scan for the particulate-reinforced composite [Fig. 8(a)] conrms the presence of a liquid phase during testing, and it is possible to use this result to estimate the total extent of the liquid in the material. The enthalpy calculated from the DSC peak in Fig. 8(a) is 187 mJ and the latent heat of Al is 389 J g21 . The mass of the DSC specimen was 9.69 mg so that the melted volume fraction is estimated as 6%. This estimated value is sufciently low that the liquid phase must be discontinuous, and this conclusion is consistent with recent in situ observations of partial melting in several superplastic Al alloy composites using transmission electron microscopy (TEM).15,27 It has been suggested that localized melting may occur at the matrix-reinforcement interfaces of 2124 Al matrix alloy composites because of solute segregation of Mg and Cu,28 and this suggestion is supported by in situ observations, conducted on an Al Mg (5052) alloy reinforced with Si3 N4 particulates, using TEM and electron energy loss spectroscopy.27 In these experiments, solute

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S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

segregation was recorded both at a majority of the interfaces between the reinforcement and the matrix and at some of the matrix grain boundaries. In addition, there was direct microscopic evidence for the presence of a liquid phase along some, but not all, of the grain boundaries at temperatures in the vicinity of the optimum superplastic condition. Thus, it is concluded that the partial melting arises from the segregation of solute atoms to the boundaries and interfaces and the extent of this segregation, and therefore the tendency for local melting, is dependent upon the precise nature of these boundaries and interfaces. By contrast, there is no evidence of a sharp endothermic peak in the 2124 Al alloy reinforced with Si3 N4 whiskers, as shown in Fig. 8( b). The melting temperature of the whisker-reinforced composite is 849 K and, since the present testing temperature was 798 K and the DSC measurements fail to reveal an endothermic peak, it is concluded that there is little or no liquid phase in this material under the conditions of testing. The experimental results show that extensive internal cavitation is formed in these two Al CuMg (2124) composites under conditions of HSR superplasticity. However, there is an important difference between the Al CuMg composites reinforced with particulates and with whiskers. In the composite containing particulates, the cavities show signicant growth only at true strains .1.0, whereas in the composite containing whiskers the cavities grow continuously from the beginning of the tensile test. The slow initial buildup of cavitation in the composite reinforced with particulates is similar to earlier observations on an AlMgSi (6061) alloy reinforced with 20 vol % of Si3 N4 particulates.17,18 There appear to be three possible reasons for the slow initial growth of the cavities in the particulatereinforced Al CuMg alloy by comparison with the whisker-reinforced composite. First, it should be noted that the stresses are signicantly higher, and generally .10 MPa, in the whisker-reinforced composite, whereas the stresses are ,5 MPa in the particulate-reinforced composite, and the stress-strain curve for these experimental conditions shows a gradual increase to a maximum stress at true strains close to 1.0. (Plots of true stress versus true strain were given earlier for these two materials.13 ) Second, the whiskers used in the experiments were long (up to 10 mm after hot extrusion) and there may be additional stress concentrations at the ends of the whiskers. Third, and most important, the DSC scan clearly reveals the presence of a liquid layer in the particulate-reinforced composite, and this layer apparently serves to accommodate the stress concentrations arising from the grain boundary sliding associated with HSR superplasticity. It is apparent also that the presence of a stable array of cavities in the particulate-reinforced composite at low

total strains demonstrates that, in this material at least, cavity nucleation is easier than cavity growth. In superplastic metals, the elongation to failure tends to increase with increasing strain rate sensitivity, m( ), where s is the stress.29 However, it ln s ln e was noted earlier that the value of m is an insufcient parameter to predict the fracture strain,30 and high ductility requires not only a reasonably high value of m (typically >0.3) but also a lack of signicant cavity interlinkage leading to cavitation failure.31 Under the experimental conditions used in the present investigation, both composites exhibited a strain rate sensitivity of m 0.35,13 and both composites failed when the area density of cavities was 103 mm22 (Fig. 3). However, the particulate-reinforced material exhibited a signicantly higher elongation to failure due only to the accommodating effect of the extensive liquid phase which gives rise to a slow buildup of cavities in the early stages of testing.
C. Role of a liquid phase in HSR superplasticity

It was suggested earlier than grain boundary sliding is the dominant ow process in HSR superplasticity, but with accommodation by the presence of a liquid phase which serves also to restrict the buildup of internal cavitation.13,14 This model may now be quantied since the present observations of cavity development provide direct evidence for the signicance of a liquid phase. Two mechanisms are generally invoked to explain cavity growth in superplastic materials. Cavities may grow by absorbing vacancies which diffuse along the boundaries3234 or they may grow as a result of plastic deformation in the surrounding matrix.35 For diffusion growth, the cavities remain reasonably rounded so that the measured roundness coefcients are 0.91.0, whereas for plasticity-controlled growth, the cavities become elongated along the tensile axis so that the roundness coefcients are signicantly ,1, but the cavities are oriented at angles close to 0. Neither of these mechanisms is consistent with the present experimental data. First, it can be shown by calculation, as demonstrated in the Appendix, that diffusion growth is of negligible importance in these experiments because the strain rates are too fast for signicant diffusion. As a result, very few of the cavities have roundness coefcients in the range of 0.91.0 (Fig. 6). Second, the distribution of orientations suggests that plasticitycontrolled growth plays only a minor role (Fig. 7), although, as also documented in the Appendix, the prediction for the plasticity-controlled growth mechanism appears to be reasonably consistent with the data for the particulate-reinforced composite if it is assumed that the largest cavities occurring at fracture were nucleated at zero strain and grew continuously throughout the test.
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S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

However, this assumption is contrary to the experimental evidence in Fig. 4(a), where there is a well-established strain range where cavity growth is negligible, and a similar calculation for the whisker-reinforced composite, also presented in the Appendix, is inconsistent with the experimental data. Thus, it appears instead that cavity growth occurs by a different mechanism which is dependent primarily upon the magnitude of the applied stress such that higher stresses lead to faster rates of growth. There have been similar reports in some commercial superplastic metals,36 and essentially the same observation was reported recently for a superplastic ceramic.20,37 Although the precise mechanism of cavity growth is not yet clear, it is probable that cavities open up as a direct consequence of the occurrence of sliding at the grain boundaries. Finally, a comparison of Figs. 4(a) and 4( b) provides direct support for the suggestion that the presence of an extensive liquid phase serves to restrict the buildup of internal cavitation damage. In the particulate-reinforced composite, where the DSC measurements indicate a reasonably extensive discontinuous liquid phase, the growth of the existing cavities is restricted to strains >1.0 where large stress concentrations are likely to develop. In the whisker-reinforced composite, where the experimental evidence suggests that there is little or no liquid layer, insufcient liquid is available to relieve the stress concentrations arising from grain boundary sliding, and the cavities then grow from the earliest stages of the test.

(5) The difference in cavitation behavior between the two composites, and therefore in the ultimate ductility, is attributed to a signicant difference, as revealed by differential scanning calorimetry, in the extent of a discontinuous liquid phase at the grain boundaries and at the matrix/reinforcement interfaces; whereas the particulate-reinforced composite contains an extensive discontinuous liquid phase which serves to relieve the stress concentrations arising from grain boundary sliding, the whisker-reinforced composite contains little or no liquid phase so that the sliding is not accommodated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-9115443, in part by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan as a Grant-in-Aid and in part by the U.S. Army Research Ofce under Grant No. DAAH04-94-G-0070.
REFERENCES
1. F. A. Mohamed and T. G. Langdon, Acta Metall. 29, 911 (1981). 2. T. G. Langdon, Metall. Trans. 13A, 689 (1982). 3. T. G. Nieh, C. A. Henshall, and J. Wadsworth, Scripta Metall. 18, 1405 (1984). 4. T. G. Nieh, P. S. Gilman, and J. Wadsworth, Scripta Metall. 19, 1375 (1985). 5. K. Higashi and M. Mabuchi, in Advanced Composites 93, edited by T. Chandra and A. K. Dhingra (TMS, Warrendale, PA, 1993), p. 35. 6. K. Higashi, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 166, 109 (1993). 7. M. Mabuchi and K. Higashi, Key Eng. Mater. 104 107, 225 (1995). 8. T. G. Langdon, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 174, 225 (1994). 9. T. G. Langdon, Acta Metall. Mater. 42, 2437 (1994). 10. T. G. Nieh, J. Wadsworth, and T. Imai, Scripta Metall. 26, 703 (1992). 11. A. H. Chokshi, T. R. Bieler, T. G. Nieh, J. Wadsworth, and A. K. Mukherjee, in Superplasticity in Aerospace, edited by H. C. Heikkenen and T. R. McNelley (TMS, Warrendale, PA, 1988), p. 229. 12. T. Imai, M. Mabuchi, Y. Tozawa, and M. Yamada, J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 9, 255 (1990). 13. M. Mabuchi, K. Higashi, and T. G. Langdon, Acta Metall. Mater. 42, 1739 (1994). 14. M. Mabuchi and K. Higashi, Philos. Mag. Lett. 70, 1 (1994). 15. J. Koike, M. Mabuchi, and K. Higashi, Acta Metall. Mater. 43, 199 (1995). 16. K. Higashi and M. Mabuchi, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 176, 461 (1994). 17. H. Iwasaki, M. Takeuchi, T. Mori, M. Mabuchi, and K. Higashi, Scripta Metall. Mater. 31, 255 (1994). 18. M. Mabuchi, H. Iwasaki, K. Higashi, and T. G. Langdon, Mater. Sci. Technol. 11, 1295 (1995). 19. Y. Ma, X. Zhao, and T. G. Langdon, in Creep and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures, edited by B. Wilshire and R. W. Evans (The Institute of Metals, London, England, 1990), p. 199. 20. Y. Ma and T. G. Langdon, Acta Metall. Mater. 42, 2753 (1994). 21. Y. Ma and T. G. Langdon, Metall. Mater. Trans. 27A, 873 (1996). 22. A. Ayensu and T. G. Langdon, Metall. Mater. Trans. 27A, 901 (1996).

V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

(1) Quantitiatve measurements of internal cavitation were taken on two AlCu Mg (2124) composites reinforced with 20 vol % of either Si3 N4 particulates or Si3 N4 whiskers. (2) Both composites exhibited extensive cavitation after testing at strain rates of 4 3 1022 and 1 3 1021 s21 at temperatures of 788 and 798 K for the particulate-reinforced and the whisker-reinforced composite, respectively. (3) Both composites failed when the area density of cavities was of the order of 103 mm22 and both composites exhibited similar strain rate sensitivities of 0.35. However, the true strains at fracture were 2.24 and 1.25 for the particulate-reinforced and the whiskerreinforced composite, respectively. (4) It is concluded from the quantitative measurements that the difference in failure strain arises because, although cavities are nucleated in the early stages of the test for both composites, there is little or no cavity growth in the particulate-reinforced composite up to strains of 1.0.
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23. X. Zhao and T. G. Langdon, in Superplasticity in Metals, Ceramics, and Intermetallics, edited by M. J. Mayo, M. Kobayashi, and J. Wadsworth (Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. 196, Pittsburgh, PA, 1990), p. 215. 24. Y. Ma, X. Zhao, and T. G. Langdon, in Microstructural Science, edited by W. R. Kanne, G. W. E. Johnson, J. D. Braun, and M. R. Louthan (ASM INTERNATIONAL, Materials Park, OH, 1993), Vol. 20, p. 559. 25. M. Mabuchi and K. Higashi, Mater. Trans. JIM 35, 399 (1994). 26. M. Mabuchi and K. Higashi, J. Mater. Res. 10, 2494 (1995). 27. J. Koike, M. Mabuchi, and K. Higashi, J. Mater. Res. 10, 133 (1995). 28. T. G. Nieh and J. Wadsworth, in Superplasticity in Advanced Materials, edited by S. Hori, M. Tokizane, and N. Furushiro (The Japan Society for Research on Superplasticity, Osaka, Japan, 1991), p. 339. 29. K. A. Padmanabhan and G. J. Davies, Superplasticity (SpringerVerlag, Berlin, 1980). 30. T. G. Langdon, Scripta Metall. 11, 997 (1977). 31. T. G. Langdon, Metal Sci. 16, 175 (1982). 32. M. V. Speight and W. Beere, Metal Sci. 9, 190 (1975). 33. A. H. Chokshi and T. G. Langdon, Acta Metall. 35, 1089 (1987). 34. Y. Ma and T. G. Langdon, Scripta Metall. Mater. 26, 1239 (1992). 35. J. W. Hancock, Metal Sci. 10, 319 (1976). 36. A. K. Ghosh, in Deformation of Polycrystals: Mechanisms and Microstructures, edited by N. Hansen, A. Horsewell, T. Leffers, and H. Lilholt (Ris National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark, 1981), p. 277. 37. Y. Ma, M. Zhou, O. T. Srensen, and T. G. Langdon, in Superplasticity and Superplastic Forming, edited by A. K. Ghosh and T. R. Bieler (TMS Warrendale, PA, 1995), p. 93. 38. A. H. Chokshi and T. G. Langdon, Acta Metall. Mater. 38, 887 (1990). 39. H. Jones, Metal. Sci. J. 5, 15 (1971). 40. F. A. Mohamed and T. G. Langdon, Metall. Trans. 5, 2339 (1974).

the form33 45Vd Dgb s dr , (A3) d 2 de kT e where d is the grain size. Integrating Eqs. (A1) and (A3) under conditions of constant temperature and strain rate, and neglecting the surface energy term in Eq. (A1), the cavity sizes at any selected strain are given by
3 2 ri3 rf e f 2 ei , A for diffusion growth and

(A4)

e f 2 ei

rf 2 ri d 2 , 75A

(A5)

for superplastic diffusion growth, respectively,38 where the subscripts i and f denote the initial and nal values, A is a constant given by 0.6Vd Dgb s (A6) , kT e and ri is the smallest stable cavity radius given by 2g (A7) . ri s Considering the particulate-reinforced composite, where the experimental strain rate is slower so that diffusion growth may be more important, Eqs. (A4) and (A5) may be used to estimate the importance of cavity growth by diffusion. From Fig. 5(a), the largest cavities recorded in this material at fracture have an area of 90 mm2 , so that rf 5 mm. Taking g 1.1 J m22 ,39 and with s 4 MPa from the stress-strain data,13 the initial cavity size from Eq. (A7) is given by ri 0.5 mm. Then, taking V 0.7b3 1.64 3 10229 m3 , where b is the Burgers vector (2.86 3 10210 m for Al), d 2b 5.72 3 10210 m, and Dgb 1.86 3 1024 exp(286,000RT ) m2 s21 where R is the gas constant (8.31 J mol21 K21 ),40 and using the testing conditions of 4 3 1022 s21 with ei 0 for T 788 K and e nucleation at zero strain, it can be shown that the strains required to attain a cavity radius of 5 mm through Eqs. (A4) and (A5) are several orders of magnitude higher than the experimental strain achieved at this high strain rate. Thus, the growth of cavities by diffusion is of no signicance in these experiments. For the plasticity-controlled growth of cavities, the growth rate is given by35 dr 3g (A8) r 2 , de 2s so that, again neglecting the surface energy term, it follows that rf . (A9) exp ef 2 ei ri A
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APPENDIX

When cavities grow by the diffusion of vacancies along the surrounding grain boundary, the rate of change of the cavity radius, r , with the total strain, e , is given by32 2aVd Dgb s 2 2gr dr , r 2 de kT e
(A1)

where V is the atomic volume, d is the grain boundary width, Dgb is the coefcient for grain boundary diffusion, g is the surface energy, k is Boltzmanns constant, and a is a cavity size-spacing parameter dened as a 1 , 4 lnl2r 2 1 2 2rl2 3 2 2rl2 (A2)

where l is the intercavity spacing. For small wellseparated cavities, l2r . 5 and a varies only slowly with l2r so that a 0.1. As the cavities grow, they become larger than the grain size, and vacancies diffuse into the cavities along many grain boundary paths. This process, known as superplastic diffusion growth, gives a growth rate of

J. Mater. Res., Vol. 11, No. 7, Jul 1996

S. Wada et al.: A quantitative analysis of cavitation in Al Cu Mg metal matrix composites

For the particulate-reinforced composite, it follows from Eq. (A9) that a cavity of 0.5 mm, nucleated at zero strain, will grow to a radius of 5 mm at a true strain of 2.3, equivalent to an elongation of 900%. This is reasonably consistent with the experimental data where fracture occurred at a true strain of 2.24, equivalent to an elongation of 840%. Nevertheless, the calculation assumes continuous growth of the cavities throughout the test and this requirement is inconsistent with the experimental measurements documented in Fig. 4(a).

Repeating the same calculation for plasticitycontrolled growth in the whisker-reinforced composite, the stress level is higher (15 MPa from the stressstrain plots13 ) so that ri 0.15 mm and the data in Fig. 5(b) give a maximum area of 80 mm2 , again equivalent to rf 5 mm, so that the strain required to achieve this radius is 3.5, equivalent to an elongation of 3200%. Thus, it is concluded that plasticity-controlled growth makes only a rather minor contribution to the growth of the cavities in the present experiments.

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J. Mater. Res., Vol. 11, No. 7, Jul 1996