Tensile strain-induced softening of iron at high temperature

Li, X. and Schönecker, S. and Simon, Eszter and Bergqvist, L. and Zhang, H. and Szunyogh, László and Zhao, J. and Johansson, B. and Vitos, Levente (2015) Tensile strain-induced softening of iron at high temperature. SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, 5. ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

In weakly ferromagnetic materials, already small changes in the atomic configuration triggered by temperature or chemistry can alter the magnetic interactions responsible for the non-random atomic-spin orientation. Different magnetic states, in turn, can give rise to substantially different macroscopic properties. A classical example is iron, which exhibits a great variety of properties as one gradually removes the magnetic long-range order by raising the temperature towards and beyond its Curie point of T 0 C = 1043 K. Using first-principles theory, here we demonstrate that uniaxial tensile strain can also destabilize the magnetic order in iron and eventually lead to a ferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition at temperatures far below T 0 C . In consequence, the intrinsic strength of the ideal single-crystal body-centered cubic iron dramatically weakens above a critical temperature of ∼ 500 K. The discovered strain-induced magneto-mechanical softening provides a plausible atomic-level mechanism behind the observed drop of the measured strength of Fe whiskers around 300 − 500 K. Alloying additions which have the capability to partially restore the magnetic order in the strained Fe lattice, push the critical temperature for the strength-softening scenario towards the magnetic transition temperature of the undeformed lattice. This can result in a surprisingly large alloying-driven strengthening effect at high temperature as illustrated here in the case of Fe-Co alloy.

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