Asymmetric cyclic response of tensile pre-deformed Cu with highly oriented nanoscale twins

Abstract History-independent, stable and symmetric cyclic response has been detected in as-deposited bulk polycrystalline Cu with highly oriented nanotwins [Nature 551 (2017) 214–217]. In this study, to deepen the understanding of cyclic deformation in nanotwinned (NT) structures, small levels of tensile pre-strains were applied on NT-Cu, followed by strain-controlled symmetric tension-compression cyclic tests. Distinct from the symmetric cyclic response of as-deposited NT-Cu, the magnitude of the maximum stress in tension is much larger than that of the minimum stress in compression, indicating that the cyclic response of tensile pre-deformed NT-Cu is highly asymmetric. The degree of its cyclic asymmetry gradually decays as the number of cycles or the plastic strain amplitude is increased. The tensile pre-deformed NT-Cu recovers to its symmetric cyclic response after cyclic deformation at sufficiently large plastic strain amplitude, analogous to that detected in as-deposited NT counterparts. Molecular dynamics simulations and microstructural observations revealed that the observed asymmetric cyclic response is mainly related to the activation and movement of threading dislocations with extended misfit dislocation tails lying on the twin boundaries (TBs) during tensile pre-deformation. During cyclic deformation, threading dislocations in adjacent twin interiors tend to link their long tails with one another to form correlated necklace dislocations (CNDs) with a symmetric structure. The CNDs move back-and-forth along the twin boundaries without directional slip resistance, contributing to the transition from asymmetric to symmetric cyclic response of NT-Cu.