Effects of Fe atoms on hardening of a nickel matrix: Nanoindentation experiments and atom-scale numerical modeling

L Kurpaska and FJ Dominguez-Gutierrez and Y Zhang and K Mulewska and H Bei and WJ Weber and A Kosinska and W Chrominski and I Jozwik and R Alvarez-Donado and S Papanikolaou and J Jagielski and M Alava, MATERIALS & DESIGN, 217, 110639 (2022).

DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2022.110639

Significant hardening effect due to Fe concentrations in Ni-based alloys with face-centered-cubic structure has been studied by using a combined experimental and atomistic-based computational approach via nanoindentation tests. The obtained experimental load-displacement data for the 001 crystal orientation reached a qualitative good agreement with molecular dynamics simulations results, leading to strong evidence that the main strengthening factors are associated to sluggish dislocation diffusion, reduced defect sizes and the nucleation of tetrahedral stacking faults. Here, interstitial type prismatic dislocation loops mainly formed by 1/6 < 112 > Shockley dislocations are nucleated during the loading process, where their interaction leads to the formation of pyramidal shaped stacking fault which are mainly created by 1/3 < 100 > Hirth dislocations lines. Observing both types of defects coexisting in the same plastic deformation zone by both approaches. Reported mechanical data, measured experimentally and interpreted numerically, are also in accordance with microstructural SEM and TEM investigations. (C) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-NDlicense (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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