[en] Effect of Zr on the electrochemical corrosion characteristics of Mg-Li-Al alloy has been investigated by means of potentiodynamic polarization study. The electrochemical behaviors were evaluated in 0.03% NaCl solution and the solution buffered with KH₂PO₅ · NaOH at room temperature. It was found that the addition of very small quantity of Zr (0.03wt%) in Mg-Li-Al alloy increased corrosion rates and amount of corrosion products and decreased the pitting resistance of the alloy. From the results it was concluded that Zr which is added to increase the strength of Mg-Li-Al alloy is harmful to corrosion properties of the alloy

[en] This paper identified the effects of Nb on microstructure. Also, it has studied on uniform and pitting corrosion resistance in a ferritic stainless steel weld metal of the automobile exhaust system. We fabricated 3 flux cored wires designed with 0-1.0 wt% Nb and performed Flux Cored Arc Welding. We observed the microstructure with the SEM/EDS and EBSD. To evaluate the uniform and pitting corrosion resistance, we performed a potentiodynamic polarization test in 0.2 M H_2SO_4 and 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 M NaCl. As a result of the tests, we found that as the amount of addition of Nb rose, the amount of Cr-carbide fell. The microstructure became more refined. The specimen with 1.0%Nb added had the highest uniform and pitting corrosion resistance. After the pitting corrosion test, a pit was formed at the grain boundary that has no addition of Nb. In addition, in the specimen with added Nb, pits were formed at the inclusions.

[en] This work proves that scattering of elastic waves in the dislocation core induces an unusual behavior called stress-drop, which is defined for the first time in this study as a phenomenon where an externally applied stress drops inside a nano-sized cubic metal during dislocation motion. We develop a theoretical phonon scattering model based on discrete lattice dynamics and derive simple analytical equations to quantify the magnitude of the stress-drop. The proposed model is supported by atomistic simulations of perfect dislocations in bcc iron, where the stress-drop resulting from bond breaking is inversely proportional to the square of the dislocation speed. The derived equation is in excellent agreement with direct atomistic simulations for edge and screw dislocations. Next, we extend the equation to the edge dislocation in fcc aluminum where the dislocation exists as a stacking fault ribbon surrounded by two Shockley partial dislocations and thus the interaction between them is important. The extended equation accurately predicts the phonon scattering, resulting in the stress-drop by the oscillation of the two partials as well as bond breaking. In addition to the discussion on the validity of our model and equations at absolute zero, we investigate the temperature and size effects on our equations. As temperature increases, the magnitude of the stress-drop decreases and converges to zero even at very low temperature because of the extremely small Peierls barrier. Moreover, the magnitude of the stress-drop decreases, as the thickness of the nanoplate increases, which shows that the stress-drop is a mechanical behavior that is prominent on the nanoscale.

[en] The dispersion characteristics of the nano-sized Y₂O₃ powders in molten aluminum were investigated from the viewpoint of changes in microstructure and mechanical property as a function of oxide contents. As the solidification structure, the oxide nanoparticles dispersed in the columnar crystal was mainly segregated on the grain boundary, whereas the oxide nanoparticles dispersed in the equiaxed crystal was uniformly dispersed on both grain boundary and inside the crystal. The most uniform dispersion of oxide nanoparticles was observed at Y₂O₃ content of 2 mass%. As Y₂O₃ content of 3 mass%, the size of oxide nanoparticles in metal matrix increased due to the particle aggregation, as confirmed by SEM analysis. Moreover, it was found that the mechanical properties such as hardness and tensile strength were improved at Y₂O₃ content of 2 mass%, indicating the well-dispersion of nano-sized Y₂O₃ powders in cast aluminum. The hardness was increased by 1.2 times up to 57 H_V and tensile strength was increased by 1.55 times up to 80 MPa, compared with the case of pure aluminum. However, at Y₂O₃ content of 3.0 mass%, tensile strength was sharply decreased by 0.6 times due to aggregation of oxide nanoparticles, while the hardness was increased to 57 H_V, which is the same as the case of Y₂O₃ content of 2.0 mass%. (author)