In situ transmission electron microscopy observation of dislocation motion in 9Cr steel at elevated temperatures: influence of shear stress on dislocation behavior.

Abstract

To elucidate high-temperature plastic deformation (creep) mechanism in materials, it is essential to observe dislocation motion under tensile loading. There are many reports on in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations in the literature; however, the relationship between the dislocation motion and shear stress in 9Cr steel is still not clear. In this study, in order to evaluate this relationship quantitatively, in situ TEM observations were carried out in conjunction with finite element method (FEM) analysis. A tensile test sample was strained at an elevated temperature (903 K) inside a transmission electron microscope, and the stress distribution in the strained sample was analyzed by FEM. The dislocation behavior was clearly found to depend on the shear stress. At a shear stress of 66 MPa, both the dislocation velocity and mobile dislocation density were low. However, a high shear stress level of 95 MPa caused a noticeable increase in the dislocation velocity and mobile dislocation density. Furthermore, in this article, we discuss the dependence of the dislocation behavior on stress. The results presented here also indicate that the relationship between the microstructure and the strength of materials can be revealed by the methods used in this work.