TY - JOUR

T1 - Prototypic Lightweight Alloy Design for Stellar-Radiation Environments

AU - Tunes, Matheus A.

AU - Stemper, Lukas

AU - Greaves, Graeme

AU - Uggowitzer, Peter J.

AU - Pogatscher, Stefan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH GmbH

PY - 2020/11/18

Y1 - 2020/11/18

N2 - The existing literature data shows that conventional aluminium alloys may not be suitable for use in stellar-radiation environments as their hardening phases are prone to dissolve upon exposure to energetic irradiation, resulting in alloy softening which may reduce the lifetime of such materials impairing future human-based space missions. The innovative methodology of crossover alloying is herein used to synthesize an aluminium alloy with a radiation resistant hardening phase. This alloy—a crossover of 5xxx and 7xxx series Al-alloys—is subjected to extreme heavy ion irradiations in situ within a TEM up to a dose of 1 dpa and major experimental observations are made: the Mg32(Zn,Al)49 hardening precipitates (denoted as T-phase) for this alloy system surprisingly survive the extreme irradiation conditions, no cavities are found to nucleate and displacement damage is observed to develop in the form of black-spots. This discovery indicates that a high phase fraction of hardening precipitates is a crucial parameter for achieving superior radiation tolerance. Based on such observations, this current work sets new guidelines for the design of metallic alloys for space exploration.

AB - The existing literature data shows that conventional aluminium alloys may not be suitable for use in stellar-radiation environments as their hardening phases are prone to dissolve upon exposure to energetic irradiation, resulting in alloy softening which may reduce the lifetime of such materials impairing future human-based space missions. The innovative methodology of crossover alloying is herein used to synthesize an aluminium alloy with a radiation resistant hardening phase. This alloy—a crossover of 5xxx and 7xxx series Al-alloys—is subjected to extreme heavy ion irradiations in situ within a TEM up to a dose of 1 dpa and major experimental observations are made: the Mg32(Zn,Al)49 hardening precipitates (denoted as T-phase) for this alloy system surprisingly survive the extreme irradiation conditions, no cavities are found to nucleate and displacement damage is observed to develop in the form of black-spots. This discovery indicates that a high phase fraction of hardening precipitates is a crucial parameter for achieving superior radiation tolerance. Based on such observations, this current work sets new guidelines for the design of metallic alloys for space exploration.

KW - alloy design

KW - aluminium alloys

KW - extreme environments

KW - space exploration

KW - space materials

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091688746&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/advs.202002397

DO - 10.1002/advs.202002397

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85091688746

VL - 7

JO - Advanced science

JF - Advanced science

SN - 2198-3844

IS - 22

M1 - 2002397

ER -