Direct Measurements of Slip Irreversibility in a Nickel Base Superalloy Using High Resolution Digital Image Correlation

Abstract

Fatigue crack nucleation in crystalline materials typically develops due to highly localized cyclic slip. During a fatigue cycle, reverse slip differs locally from slip in the forward direction particularly in precipitate-containing materials such as superalloys. In this paper we report the first direct measurements of irreversibility at the scale of individual slip planes in a polycrystalline nickel base superalloy. Quantitative measurements of the slip irreversibility is challenging to be performed for regions of material that have a size that captures the microstructure and its variability. High spatial resolution at the nanometer scale during experimental measurements is needed to observe slip localization during deformation. Moreover, large fields are also needed to obtain the material response over statistically representative populations of microstructural configurations. Recently, high resolution scanning electron microscope (SEM) digital image correlation (DIC) has been extended for quantitative analysis of discontinuities induced by slip events using the Heaviside-DIC method. This novel method provides quantitative measurements of slip localization at the specimen surface. In this paper, the Heaviside-DIC method is used to measure slip irreversibility and plastic accumulation in a nickel base superalloy. The local microstructural configurations that induces large amounts of plasticity and slip irreversibility are captured and correlated to crack nucleation locations.