Microstructural evolution and its influence on creep and stress relaxation in nanocrystalline Ni

Indentation creep and stress relaxation tests were performed on rolled and annealed nanocrystalline (NC) Ni to study the influence of microstructure evolution on plastic deformation behavior. Dislocation density (ρ) increases with increasing rolling strain, reaching a maximum at 20% strain, followed by a decrease at larger strain. The ρ of Ni decreases significantly with increasing annealing temperature. Softening behavior is observed in NC Ni with grain size <40 nm, i.e., an inverse-like Hall–Petch effect. For rolling NC Ni, both creep strain rate and rate sensitivity first increase and then decrease, while those of annealed Ni continuously decrease. With increasing grain size, creep activation volume unusually decreases first, then starts to rise, which is different from that of coarse-grained metal. A model involving dislocation annihilation and emission at grain boundaries under indenters is used to explain the anomalous behavior of rolled and annealed Ni, respectively.