IS SEGREGATION-INDUCED GRAIN BOUNDARY EMBRITTLEMENT A POLYMORPHOUS MELTING PROCESS?

摘要

Professor Meshii and his students have made a number of important contributions to our understanding of solid-state amorphization and segregation-induced grain boundary embrittlement. The two processes have traditionally been regarded as completely different phenomena belonging to different branches of materials science. However, recent studies on Ni-S alloys have revealed striking similarities in the kinetics of S-implantation-induced amorphization and S-induced grain boundary embrittlement. In the present paper, we examine the underlying thermodynamics and show that both phenomena can be regarded as a polymorphous melting process.