The Design Concept of New Alloys with High Strength and Ductility is Briefly Described

Abstract

Materials scientists have been constantly on the lookout for ma-terials that simultaneously exhibit high strength and good ductili-ty, which is contrary to common wisdom[1].Earlier attempts to achieve this unusual combination have met with limited suc-cess[2].Novel approaches such as a duplex microstructure con-sisting of nanocrystalline and ultrafine grains yielded encouraging results[3].While the nanocrystalline structure provided high strength, the ultrafine-grained ( or relatively coarse-grained ) structure provided the needed ductility. In general, the most im-portant concept exploited was to increase the work-hardening ca-pacity of the alloy to increase its ductility, since the former helps in delaying the localized deformation stress ( necking) under ten-sion[4].