Superplasticity in advanced materials

The ability to achieve a high tensile ductility in a polycrystalline material is of interest both from a scientific point of view and also because of potential applications in the materials forming industry. The superplasticity of conventional metallic alloys is now well-documented and understood reasonably well. However, the field of superplasticity has expanded recently beyond the traditional metallic alloys to include evidence of superplastic-like behavior in a very wide range of new and advanced materials. To date, superplasticity has been reported in mechanically alloyed metals, metal matrix composites, ceramics, ceramic matrix composites and intermetallic compounds. This review presents an overview of these new developments using the established behavior of conventional metallic alloys as a standard for comparison with the mechanical properties of these new materials. As well be demonstrated, the new materials often exhibit significant differences in their flow characteristics in comparison with the traditional superplastic metallic alloys. The successful utilization of superplastic materials in forming applications requires an understanding of the failure processes occurring in the materials in terms of both the localization of external flow and the accumulation of internal damage through the nucleation and growth of cavities. These problems are also addressed in this review.