Twinning propensity in nanocrystalline face-centered cubic, body-centered cubic, and hexagonal close-packed metals

The nanotwinned structures in metals exhibit the unique combination of physical properties. The unifying approach is developed that can be applied to nanocrystalline (nc) materials with different crystal structures. It is used to make a bridge between microscopical mechanisms of twin nucleation and macroscopic characteristics of the twinning and calculate them. The grain size range of the nanotwinning propensity, the grain size of its peak, and the requisite external twinning stress are calculated for the nc face-centered cubic metals Al, Cu, Ni, Pd, Au, Ag, for nc body-centered cubic metals Ta, Fe, Nb, Mo, and for hexagonal close-packed nc metals Co, Zr, Mg, Ti. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.