Stacking fault energy γ
SF of
fcc metals can be evaluated by knowing the twinning stress τ
T. In pure nickel, however, deformation twinning does not occur even at 4.2 K because of its high γ
SF. For this reason, measurements of τ
T for nickel-based alloys being subject to deformation twinning have been made, in order to evaluate the value of γ
SF for pure nickel by using an extrapolation method. Ni-Ge(1∼9 at%) alloy crystals oriented near 〈111〉 were chosen for this purpose and deformed in tension at 4.2 K. The main results are summarized as follows:
(1) Twinning takes place before the onset of necking in alloys containing Ge 5 at% or more, and the twinning stresses are reduced as the Ge content increases. (2) The values of γ
SF determined from the twinning stresses τ
T for Ni-5, 7 and 9 at%Ge alloys are 109, 90 and 76 mJ/m
2, respectively. (3) The value of γ
SF extrapolated to pure nickel through the values of Ni-Ge alloys by using Gallagher’s expression is found to be γ
Ni=149±3 mJ/m
2. (4) The internal stress acting on the twinning dislocations, which arises from a dislocation pile-up in our model previously proposed, is not large but only about 1.3 times of the applied stress, so that the value of γ
SF can be evaluated with little effect of the number of piled-up dislocations, in marked contrast to the method of determining γ
SF from the cross-slip condition. (5) A very simplified formula for evaluating γ
SF from τ
T has been derived with a good approximation as γ
SF=ξ(
R)τ
Tbs, where ξ(
R) is a parameter depending only on the specimen orientation, being nearly equal to 2 for the specimens oriented near 〈211〉, and
bs is the Burgers vector of a Shockley partial dislocation.
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