The strength-ductility trade-off has been a long-standing dilemma in materials science. This has limited the potential of many structural materials, steels in particular. Here we report a way of enhancing the strength of twinning-induced plasticity steel at no ductility trade-off. After applying torsion to cylindrical twinning-induced plasticity steel samples to generate a gradient nanotwinned ...

Nano-twinned copper exhibits an unusual combination of ultrahigh strength and high ductility, along with increased strain-rate sensitivity. We develop a mechanistic framework for predicting the rate sensitivity and elucidating the origin of ductility in terms of the interactions of dislocations with interfaces. Using atomistic reaction pathway calculations, we show that slip transfer reactions ...

Boron carbide (B4C) is a hard material whose value for extended engineering applications such as body armor; is limited by its brittleness under impact. To improve the ductility while retaining hardness, we used density functional theory to examine modifying B4C ductility through microalloying. We found that replacing the CBC chain in B4C with Si-Si, denoted as (B11Cp)-Si2, dramatically improve...

Seismic ductility reduction factors for flexural-type structures with vertical irregularities subjected to pulse-like and nonpulse-like ground motions are investigated in this paper. By establishing various multi-node flexural cantilever-column models, the ductility reduction factor of vertically irregular structures is studied by modifying the ductility reduction factor of irregular structures...

Based on tests on six L-shaped RC columns with 500 MPa steel bars, the effect of axial compression ratios and stirrup spacing on failure mode, bearing capacity, displacement, and curvature ductility of the specimens is investigated. Test results show that specimens with lower axial load and large stirrup characteristic value (larger than about 0.35) are better at ductility and seismic performan...

Nanostructured bainite is a novel ultra-high-strength steel-concept under intensive current research, in which the optimization of its mechanical properties can only come from a clear understanding of the parameters that control its ductility. This work reviews first the nature of this composite-like material as a product of heat treatment conditions. Subsequently, the premises of ductility beh...

Metallic glass (MG) generally fails in a brittle manner under uniaxial tension loading at room temperature. The lack of plastic strain of MG is due to the severe plastic instability via the easily formed one dominate shear band. There have been several approaches to improve the ductility in MG, but achieving uniform tensile ductility for monolithic MG in bulk size remains a challenge. Here we d...

Combinations of high strength and ductility are hard to attain in metals. Exceptions include materials exhibiting twinning-induced plasticity. To understand how the strength-ductility trade-off can be defeated, we apply in situ, and aberration-corrected scanning, transmission electron microscopy to examine deformation mechanisms in the medium-entropy alloy CrCoNi that exhibits one of the highes...