The GH4169 alloy is widely used in engineering structures due to its excellent high-temperature strength, corrosion resistance, and mechanical properties. However, local stresses during plastic deformation significantly impact its macroscopic mechanical performance. This study investigates the residual deformation fields and plastic deformation mechanisms around local indentations using digital image correlation (DIC), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and nanoindentation. The results show that the indentation rate affects the accumulation of geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs). Increasing the loading rate from 2mN/s to 20mN/s leads to a 32% increase in GNDs. When the loading strain rate increases from 0.01s-1 to 0.2s-1, GNDs increase by 43%. Moreover, indentations initiate more than two slip systems in the alloy crystals, with slip trace lines consistent with theoretical predictions. The plastic deformation field distribution around the indentations, obtained using DIC, reveals the influence range of slip generation due to indentations to be around 10 μm.
Read full abstract