Physicists from the St. Petersburg Institute of Mechanical Engineering Problems (IPMash) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa University of Science and Technology, and Nanjing University of Science and Technology have achieved record-breaking titanium strength. This achievement may open new horizons in the development of ultra-strong and ductile materials, including dental implants.
Russian researchers suggested that the ultra-high strength is associated with the accumulation of impurities at grain boundaries. In turn, scientists from Nanjing University of Science and Technology confirmed this experimentally, discovering an unusually high concentration of iron atoms in thick interlayers along the boundaries.
The scientists treated the titanium material with two-fold torsion under high pressure followed by annealing. The titanium grains were reduced to 100 nm, which is 100-1000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair, and demonstrated record strength.
Researchers at Ufa University found that the yield strength of such titanium reaches 1510 MPa. In comparison, ordinary hot-rolled titanium has a value of 680 MPa.
We hypothesized that the ultra-high strength of nanostructured titanium is related to how impurities affect the defect structure of grain boundaries. To test this idea, I proposed using a theoretical model previously developed for aluminum alloys nanostructured in the same way. It explains how impurities at grain boundaries interact with dislocations present there, blocking their mobility and increasing the strength of the material.
Earlier, www1.ru reported that Russia is considering how to extract 15% of the world's titanium reserves from its subsoil.
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