Thermally activated dislocation plasticity in body-centered cubic chromium studied by high-temperature nanoindentation

Abstract

The deformation behavior of Chromium (Cr) was investigated with the goal to understand and quantify the thermally-activated dislocation plasticity and the transition to the temperature-/rate-independent regime in body-centered cubic (bcc) metals. High-temperature nanoindentation experiments were utilized to characterize the deformation behavior of bcc Cr from room temperature to 673 K. To validate the indentation method itself at elevated temperatures, we systematically studied the temperature-dependent indentation elastic modulus, which clearly shows a discontinuity at the magnetic phase transition at 308 K, which is quantitatively consistent with literature data. We characterized the kinet..