Mechanical properties articles within Nature Materials

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Harnessing premature necking produces a rapid multiplication of dislocations to interact with local chemical orders for work hardening in VCoNi alloy, achieving ductility of 20% and yield strength of 2 GPa during room-temperature and cryogenic deformation.

    • Bowen Xu
    • , Huichao Duan
    •  & Xiaolei Wu

  • Article |

    Simultaneously highly elastic and deformable gels that maintain their mechanical properties have remained elusive. Here, using in situ polymerization confined within nanochannels, the authors prepare hysteresis-free gels insensitive to crack propagation.

    • Weizheng Li
    • , Xiaoliang Wang
    •  & Feng Yan

  • News & Views |

    Oxide glasses can be intrinsically toughened by forming crystal-like, medium-range order clusters, which transform inversely to the amorphous state under stress, exciting multiple shear bands for plastic deformation.

    • Hewei Zhao
    •  & Lin Guo

  • Research Briefing |

    Self-healing behaviour in a nanotwinned diamond composite, at room temperature, has been quantitatively evaluated through tensile testing. The phenomenon is shown to arise from a transition of atomic interactions from repulsion to attraction and the formation of nanoscale diamond ‘osteoblasts’, in analogy to the process of bone healing in living organisms.

  • Article |

    The room-temperature self-healing behaviour of a nanotwinned diamond composite is quantitatively evaluated and found to stem from both the formation of nanoscale diamond osteoblasts and the atomic interaction transition from repulsion to attraction.

    • Keliang Qiu
    • , Jingpeng Hou
    •  & Lin Guo

  • News & Views |

    Amorphization can be an additional mechanism to assist plastic deformation in crystalline materials, providing a strategy to improve the load-bearing ability of brittle materials.

    • Shiteng Zhao
    •  & Xiaolei Wu

  • Article |

    In situ tests show that all-inorganic lead halide perovskite micropillars can morph into distinct shapes without affecting their optoelectronic properties and bandgap, which provides insights into the plastic deformation of semiconductors and also shows their potential for manufacturing relevant devices.

    • Xiaocui Li
    • , You Meng
    •  & Yang Lu

  • Article |

    Through the approach of paracrystallization under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions, exceptional toughening has been achieved in oxide glasses by enhancing their crystal-like medium-range order structure. This discovery offers possibilities for the design of more resilient glass materials.

    • Hu Tang
    • , Yong Cheng
    •  & Tomoo Katsura

  • Article |

    Amorphous shear bands in crystalline materials are found to increase the toughness of brittle materials, in contrast to their traditional role as precursors to fracture. Criteria for this toughening have been identified.

    • Xuanxin Hu
    • , Nuohao Liu
    •  & Izabela Szlufarska

  • News & Views |

    The direct observation of enhanced dislocation mobility in iron by in situ electron microscopy offers key insights and adds to the ongoing debate on the mechanisms of hydrogen embrittlement.

    • Vasily Bulatov
    •  & Wei Cai

  • News & Views |

    Scandium added to Al–Cu–Mg–Ag alloys leads to an in situ phase transformation of coherent Cu-rich nanoprecipitates at elevated temperature, with Sc atoms diffusing and occupying their interstitial sites. The transformed nanoprecipitates have enhanced thermal stability while maintaining a large volume fraction and these two microstructural features enable high tensile strength of the Al alloy with creep resistance up to 400 °C.

    • Amit Shyam
    •  & Sumit Bahl

  • Article |

    Laser additive manufacturing can be exploited to generate unique internally twinned nanoprecipitates in commercial titanium alloys, paving the way to fabricate ultrastrong metallic materials with intricate shapes for broad applications.

    • Yuman Zhu
    • , Kun Zhang
    •  & Aijun Huang

  • Article |

    The variation in the properties of rare earth (RE) steels is shown to stem from the presence of oxygen-based inclusions, and only under very-low-oxygen conditions can RE elements perform a vital role in purifying, modifying and micro-alloying steels.

    • Dianzhong Li
    • , Pei Wang
    •  & Yiyi Li

  • Article |

    Microscale architecting enables metamaterials to achieve mechanical properties not accessible to bulk materials. Here the authors show that established design protocols for the fracture of materials need to be revised to predict the failure of these materials.

    • Angkur Jyoti Dipanka Shaikeea
    • , Huachen Cui
    •  & Vikram Sudhir Deshpande

  • News & Views |

    Nanoarchitected carbon composed of intricate tube-in-tube beams connected with nanostruts has been fabricated, achieving both ultralightweight and ultrahigh modulus.

    • Yujia Wang
    •  & Xiaoyan Li

  • Article |

    Submicrometre-sized amorphous silicon samples show an unusually large tensile strength relative to the compressive strength, which is due to the reduced shear modulus and the activation energy barrier for shear transformations under compression.

    • Yuecun Wang
    • , Jun Ding
    •  & Zhiwei Shan

  • News & Views |

    Nanoporous tripeptide crystals mechanically deform upon water evaporation due to the strengthening of the water hydrogen bonding inside the pores, which causes the distortion of the surrounding supramolecular network, creating stresses that extend through the crystal lattice and result in actuation.

    • Panče Naumov

  • Article |

    In contrast with conventional views, ultra-large-scale atomistic simulations show that the staged character of strain hardening of metals originates from crystal rotation, whereas the dislocation behaviours remain the same across all the stages.

    • Luis A. Zepeda-Ruiz
    • , Alexander Stukowski
    •  & Vasily V. Bulatov

  • Article |

    Transmission electron microscopy reveals the electroplastic effects in a Ti–Al alloy, which can be uncoupled from Joule heating effects. Electropulsing during deformation enhances wavy slip of dislocations, reconfiguring the dislocation pattern, and hence increases the ductility.

    • Shiteng Zhao
    • , Ruopeng Zhang
    •  & Andrew M. Minor

  • Comment |

    The restoration of fire-damaged historical monuments entails a wide range of scientific questions. Taking as a starting point the case of Notre-Dame de Paris, this Comment defines the materials science challenges of post-fire restoration, and also briefly outlines the issues of structural integrity, fire safety and preservation ethics.

    • Ylenia Praticò
    • , John Ochsendorf
    •  & Robert J. Flatt

  • Article |

    Radiation-induced segregation is widely observed in metals. Here it is discovered that radiation-induced segregation also occurs in a ceramic, with carbon atoms in silicon carbide segregating to the grain boundaries under irradiation.

    • Xing Wang
    • , Hongliang Zhang
    •  & Izabela Szlufarska

  • Article |

    It is believed that the strengthening of metals by formation of nanoscale grains or coherent twin boundaries is limited to a maximum strength. Here, using experiment and theory, it is shown that the fabrication of nanocrystalline-nanotwinned Ag with trace Cu results in a hardness beyond this limit.

    • Xing Ke
    • , Jianchao Ye
    •  & Frederic Sansoz

  • News & Views |

    Unlike conventional inorganic semiconductors, which are typically brittle, α-Ag2S exhibits room-temperature ductility with favourable electrical properties, offering promise for use in high-performance flexible and stretchable devices.

    • Dae-Hyeong Kim
    •  & Gi Doo Cha

  • Article |

    Inorganic α-Ag2S semiconductor, which has preferential slip planes in the crystal structure and irregularly distributed bonds of silver atoms preventing cleavage, demonstrates metal-like ductility at room temperature.

    • Xun Shi
    • , Hongyi Chen
    •  & Lidong Chen

  • News & Views |

    Additive manufacturing has been used to fabricate a common stainless steel, which imparts a unique microstructure to this material, making it stronger and more ductile than that produced with conventional methods.

    • Iain Todd

  • News & Views |

    Introducing high-density ordered nanoprecipitates into martensitic steel increases strength at modest cost.

    • J. W. Morris Jr

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