Qiongyao He

Interstitial free steels with various grain sizes and textures were prepared by cold-rolling followed by an annealing process. The effect of grain size, crystallographic orientations and stored energy on corrosion behavior of interstitial free steel was investigated. It was found that the deformed microstructure and dislocation boundaries were consumed by recrystallizing grains during annealing. The average grain size increase ranging from 0.61 μm to 11 μm and the volume fraction of recrystallized grains was about 96% after annealing for 64 h; meanwhile, the γ fiber was the dominated recrystallized texture component. The stored energy gradually decreased due to the reduction in dislocation density by annealing. The potentiodynamic polarization and Nyquist plots show that the corrosion potential exhibits a more positive shift and depressed capacitive semicircle radius increase with rising annealing time. The 64 h annealed specimens had the biggest depressed semicircle in the Nyquist plots and the highest positive corrosion potential, which indicates the enhancement of corrosion resistance. Such an improvement of corrosion resistance is attributed to the increase in the volume fraction of the γ fiber and decrease in the stored energy.

On aluminum alloys of grades 1060, 2024 and 7075, regular and highly uniform oxide films were formed by anodic oxidation. Anodizing was carried out at a constant pressure in a phosphoric acid solution of various concentrations. Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), the optimal characteristics of the method of anodic oxidation for forming uniform oxide films on aluminum alloys were determined: anodic oxidation time, temperature, voltage and the concentration of H₃PO₄. It was found that, in the process of anodizing, the films have gone through four stages: a non-porosity stage, a mixed stage, an ordered porosity stage and a disordered porosity stage.

The effect of recrystallization annealing on corrosion behavior of Ta-4%W alloy was studied. It is found that the deformed sample contains high dense dislocations and dislocation boundaries. During annealing, these dislocations and dislocation boundaries are replaced by recrystallizing grains until the alloy is fully recrystallized. Both the anodic dissolution and the cathodic activity is much more blocked. The corrosion potential gradual shift towards negative values and corrosion current density decrease, while polarization resistance increases after annealing, indicating enhanced corrosion resistance of the alloy. Such an enhancement is caused by the increase of low-Σ coincide site lattice boundaries and decrease of dislocations and dislocation boundaries.

Exploring structural effects that influence both the mechanics and magnetism in nanocrystalline materials, particularly extremely-fine nanograined ones with grain sizes down to several nanometers, is of high interest for developing multifunctional materials combining superior mechanical and magnetic performances. We found in this work that electrodeposited extremely-fine nanograined Ni-P alloys exhibit a significant enhancement of magnetization, simultaneously along with an increase in hardness, after low-temperature annealing. The relaxation of non-equilibrium structures, precipitation of the second phase and the segregation of P atoms to grain boundaries (GBs) during annealing have then been sequentially evidenced. By systematically comparing the variations in macroscopic and microstructural investigation results among several Ni-P alloys with different P contents, we suggest that the second phase has little effect on magnetization enhancement, and essentially both the structural relaxation and GB segregation can play important roles in hardening by governing GB stability, and in the improvement of magnetization by enhancing Ni–Ni atom exchange interactions.