| Quantitative measurement and analysis of grain boundary sliding in Ultra-fine grained 5083 Aluminium by AFM was conducted at 623K. The grain size of as received cryomilled Ultra-fine Grained Aluminium was characterized by AFM and TEM, and the average was founded to be about 300nm. Ion beam polishing / etching technology was used to reveal grain boundaries for AFM characterization. The vertical offset of grain boundary sliding was measured by comparing pre-defoemation and post-deformation AFM images.;By analyzing these measurements, the contribution of grain boundary sliding to the total strain was estimated as 22% - 52% at a strain rate of 10 -4 /sec -5x10-2/sec. It was demonstrated that the relatively low value of the contribution of grain boundary sliding to the total strain is most likely the result of testing under experimental condition that favor the dominance of region I ( low stress) of the sigmoidal behavior characterizing high strain rate superplasticity, which was previously reported. |
