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Ductility
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Ductility is a mechanical property used to describe the extent to which materials can be deformed plastically without fracture.
In material science, ductility specifically refers to a material's ability to deform under tensile stress; this is often characterized by the material's ability to be stretched into a wire. Malleability, a similar concept, refers to a material's ability to deform under compressive stress; this is often characterized by the material's ability to form a thin sheet by hammering or rolling.
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Encyclopedia
Ductility is a mechanical property used to describe the extent to which materials can be deformed plastically without fracture.
In material science, ductility specifically refers to a material's ability to deform under tensile stress; this is often characterized by the material's ability to be stretched into a wire. Malleability, a similar concept, refers to a material's ability to deform under compressive stress; this is often characterized by the material's ability to form a thin sheet by hammering or rolling. Ductility and malleability do not always correlate with each other; for instance, gold is both ductile and malleable, but lead is only malleable. Commonly, the term "ductility" is used to refer to both concepts, as they are very similar.
Scientific fields
Geology
In Earth science the brittle-ductile transition zone is a zone, at an approximate depth of in continental crust, at which rock becomes less likely to fracture and more likely to deform ductilely. In glacial ice this zone is at approximately depth. It is not impossible for material above a brittle-ductile transition zone to deform ductilely, nor for material below to deform brittly. The zone exists because as depth increases confining pressure increases, and brittle strength increases with confining pressure whilst ductile strength decreases with increasing temperature. The transition zone occurs at the point where brittle strength exceeds ductile strength.
Materials science
Ductility is especially important in metalworking, as materials that crack or break under stress cannot be manipulated using metal forming processes, such as hammering, rolling, and drawing. Malleable materials can be formed using stamping or pressing, whereas brittle metals and plastics must be molded.
High degrees of ductility occur due to metallic bonds, which are found predominantly in metals and leads to the common perception that metals are ductile in general. In metallic bonds valence shell electrons are delocalized and shared between many atoms. The delocalized electrons allow metal atoms to slide past one another without being subjected to strong repulsive forces that would cause other materials to shatter.
Ductility can be quantified by the fracture strain , which is the engineering strain at which a test specimen fractures during a uniaxial tensile test. Another commonly used measure is the reduction of area at fracture .
The following list ranks metals from the greatest ductility to least: gold, silver, platinum, iron, nickel, copper, aluminium, zinc, tin, and lead. The malleability of the same metals are then ranked from greatest to least: gold, silver, lead, copper, aluminium, tin, platinum, zinc, iron, and nickel. The ductility of steel varies depending on the alloying constituents. Increasing levels of carbon decreases ductility. Many plastics and amorphous solids, such as Play-Doh, are also malleable.
Ductile-brittle transition temperature
The ductile-brittle transition temperature (DBTT), nil ductility temperature (NDT), or nil ductility transition temperature of a metal represents the point at which the fracture energy passes below a pre-determined point (for steels typically 40 J for a standard Charpy impact test). DBTT is important since, once a material is cooled below the DBTT, it has a much greater tendency to shatter on impact instead of bending or deforming. For example, zamak 3 exhibits good ductility at room temperature but shatters at sub-zero temperatures when impacted. DBTT is a very important consideration in materials selection when the material in question is subject to mechanical stresses. A similar phenomenon, the glass transition temperature, occurs with glasses and polymers, although the mechanism is different in these amorphous materials.
In some materials this transition is sharper than others. For example, the transition is generally sharper in materials with a body-centered cubic (BCC) lattice than those with a face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice. DBTT can also be influenced by external factors such as neutron radiation, which leads to an increase in internal lattice defects and a corresponding decrease in ductility and increase in DBTT.
The most accurate method of measuring the BDT or DBT temperature of a material is by fracture testing. Typically four point bend testing at a range of temperatures is performed on pre-cracked bars of polished material. For experiments conducted at higher temperatures dislocation activity increases. At a certain temperature dislocations shield the crack tip to such an extent the applied deformation rate is not sufficient for the stress intensity at the crack-tip to reach the critical value for fracture (KiC). The temperature at which this occurs is the ductile-brittle transition temperature. If experiments are performed at a higher strain rate more dislocation shielding is required to prevent brittle fracture and the transition temperature is raised.
Nuclear power plant reactor pressure vessel embrittlement
Perhaps the most critical ductility concern is the embrittlement of nuclear power plant reactor vessels. Neutron radiation causes embrittlement of some materials, neutron-induced swelling, and buildup of Wigner energy, thus affecting the nil ductility temperature of the vessel's metal. This effect is now rigorously scrutinized by the operators, including by periodic testing of metal "coupons" emplaced inside the reactor vessel. The vessel's nil ductility temperature is likely to be the limiting factor in plant life, at least for pressurized water reactors (PWR).
Periodically the plants are shutdown for refueling and maintenance (18 months for PWR, 24 months for boiling water reactor (BWR)), which requires the reactor vessel to be cooled down from above to ambient temperatures. This cooling down and warming up afterward creates temperature gradients and thus induced stresses between the different components and areas of the reactor. As the reactor gets older, neutron radiation causes embrittlement and the stresses must be below a certain value. Thus cooling down and warming up must be done more slowly, but is still possible.
See also
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