Vol 117, No 4 (2016)

This paper is to honor Academician Vadim Mikhailovich Schastlivtsev, a prominent scientist in the field of metal physics and materials science. The article comprises an analysis of the topical issues of the physical metallurgy of the early 21st century and of the contribution of V.M. Schastlivtsev and of his school to the science of phase and structural transformations in steels. In 2015, Vadim Mikhailovich celebrates his 80th birthday, and this paper is timed to this honorable date. The list of his main publications is given in it.

The asymmetric pinning of vortex domain walls in a region with a lowered saturation magnetization has been investigated in ferromagnetic films with the in-plane anisotropy. Numerical micromagnetic simulation within the two-dimensional model of the magnetization distribution has been used. The wall structure and the depinning fields in different directions have been investigated depending on the dimensions of the region with lowered saturation magnetization and the film thickness. The physical factors that determine the obtained regularities have been established.

The structural evolution and hardness of sing-crystal niobium with various initial orientations are investigated after its deformation in Bridgman anvils at room (290 K) and cryogenic (80 K) temperatures. It is shown that no twinning occurs upon cryogenic deformation; thin prolonged bands dividing the matrix into weakly misoriented regions are formed. The uniform-in-size structure of a nanoscale level (d_av = 40 nm) is formed during cryogenic deformation after the maximum achieved true strain. The average microcrystallite size observed after room-temperature deformation is 120 nm.

The developed method of diffraction analysis has shown that the martensitic transformation in iron crystals with the interstitial carbon atoms produces the highest natural density of dislocations in metals. The transformation occurs via microscopic shears, which collectively rearrange the lattice. This process becomes more evident due to the high concentration of fine dislocation loops, which has initially been identified in cubic and then in tetragonal martensite crystals.

A series mathematical model has been developed for the prediction of flow stress and microstructure evolution during the hot deformation of metals such as copper or austenitic steels with low stacking fault energies, involving features of both diffusional flow and dislocation motion. As the strain rate increases, multiple peaks on the stress-strain curve decrease. At a high strain rate, the stress rises to a single peak, while dynamic recrystallization causes an oscillatory behavior. At a low strain rate (when there is sufficient time for the recrystallizing grains to grow before they become saturated with high dislocation density with an increase in strain rate), the difference in stored stress between recrystallizing and old grains diminishes, resulting in reduced driving force for grain growth and rendering smaller grains in the alloy. The final average grain size at the steady stage (large strain) increases with a decrease in the strain rate. During large strain deformation, grain size reduction accompanying dislocation creep might be balanced by the grain growth at the border delimiting the ranges of realization (field boundary) of the dislocation-creep and diffusion-creep mechanisms.

The structure and mechanical characteristics of a weld joint of 10Kh9K3V2MFBR steel (0.097 C, 0.17.Si, 0.54 Mn, 8.75 Cr, 0.21 Ni, 0.51 Mo, 0.07 Nb, 0.23 V, 0.004 N, 0.003 B, 1.6 W, 0.15 Cu, and Fe for balance, wt %) have been studied; the joint was produced by hand welding in an argon atmosphere using 03Kh20N45M7G6B welding wire (0.3 C, 20 Cr, 45 Ni, 7 Mo, 6 Mn, and 1 Nb, wt %). The weld joint is divided into the zone of the base metal, a thermal effect zone, which consists of zones that contain fine and coarse original austenitic grains, and the zone of seam metal. It has been shown that the weld joint of 10Kh9K3V2MFBR steel possesses high strength characteristics at the room temperature under static loading and a satisfactorily impact toughness, which has the minimum value of 30 J/cm² in the zone of the seam metal and does not depend on the temperature. With a decrease in the temperature from the room temperature to 253 K, a ductile–brittle transition occurs in the thermal effect zone. Creep tests carried out at the temperature of 923 K have shown that the long-term strength of the weld seam is lower than that of the base material in the entire stress range being tested. At stresses of 140 MPa or higher, the acceleration of creep in the weld seam is observed, while at low stresses of about 120 MPa, the rates of creep in the weld seam and in the base metal remain similar until the transition to the stage of accelerated fracture occurs. The difference in the values of the long-term strength is due to premature fracture, which occurs in the thermal effect zone with the finegrained structure.

The model of the migration and accumulation at dislocations of transmutation helium and the formation of helium–vacancy pore nuclei in austenitic steels upon neutron irradiation has been proposed. As illustrations of its application, the dependences of the characteristics of pore nuclei on the temperature of neutron irradiation have been calculated. The results of the calculations have been compared with the experimental data in the literature on measuring the characteristics of radiation-induced porosity that arises upon the irradiation of shells of fuel elements of a 16Cr–19Ni–2Mo–2Mn–Si–Ti–Nb–V–B steel in a fast BN600 neutron reactor at different temperatures.