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Shear-induced anisotropic plastic flow from body-centred-cubic tantalum before melting

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 223–228 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

There are many structural and optical similarities between a liquid and a plastic flow. Thus, it is non-trivial to distinguish between them at high pressures and temperatures, and a detailed description of the transformation between these phenomena is crucial to our understanding of the melting of metals at high pressures. Here we report a shear-induced, partially disordered viscous plastic flow from body-centred-cubic tantalum under heating before it melts into a liquid. This thermally activated structural transformation produces a unique, one-dimensional structure analogous to a liquid crystal with the rheological characteristics of Bingham plastics. This mechanism is not specific to Ta and is expected to hold more generally for other metals. Remarkably, this transition is fully consistent with the previously reported anomalously low-temperature melting curve and thus offers a plausible resolution to a long-standing controversy about melting of metals under high pressures.

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Figure 1: Predicted MD boundary between b.c.c. and plastic flow, as well as previously reported melting curves of Ta.
Figure 2: Structural properties compared between b.c.c., one-dimensional plastic flow and glass.
Figure 3: Time history of thermal shear relaxation and transition temperature as a function of external stress.
Figure 4: Significant anisotropy observed in the ab initio energy landscape along the b.c.c.-to-h.c.p. Burgers transformation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank J. A. Moriarty for providing the MGPT Ta potential, M. Ross, N. C. Holmes, W. J. Evans, M. J. Lipp, M. Tang, R. Gee and D. A. Orlikowski for useful discussions and K. Kline and J. McInnis for their contributions in preparation of the manuscript and figures. This work was carried out under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.

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  1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA

    Christine J. Wu, Per Söderlind, James N. Glosli & John E. Klepeis

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  1. Christine J. Wu
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Contributions

C.J.W. originated the central idea, performed and analysed the Ta MD simulations and the Ta ab initio electronic structure calculations, carried out code development (central symmetry) and wrote the paper; P.S. contributed in ab initio electronic structure calculations and manuscript editing; J.N.G. carried out MD code development; J.E.K. contributed in manuscript editing; all contributed to discussions.

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Correspondence to Christine J. Wu.

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Wu, C., Söderlind, P., Glosli, J. et al. Shear-induced anisotropic plastic flow from body-centred-cubic tantalum before melting. Nature Mater 8, 223–228 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2375

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