Effect of shock loading on the microstructure, mechanical properties and grain boundary characteristics of HT-9 ferritic/martensitic steels

The microstructural changes and mechanical response of an HT-9 sample shock loaded to a peak pressure of 11 GPa have been investigated by TEM, XRD, microhardness and EBSD techniques. Dislocation densities obtained by both direct measurements (via TEM) and indirect calculations (by XRD and hardness) indicate that shock loading results in ~2-3 fold increase in dislocation density. TEM analyses show that the shape, and density of the dislocations change after shock loading. In addition, shock loading causes local plastic deformation of the continuous parallel lath structure in some regions, together with an overall decrease in the aspect ratio of laths due to local plastic deformation and lath fragmentation. As a result of XRD analyses, the fraction of edge dislocations is determined to increase by ~24% after shock loading. Furthermore, hardness increases by ~40 HV after shock loading due to the increased dislocation density. EBSD analyses show that the fraction of CSL boundaries decreases by ~5-10% as a result of shock loading.