Comparative Study of the Dynamic Deformation of Pure Molybdenum at High Strain Rates and High Temperatures

Abstract

To study the dynamic plastic properties of high-purity molybdenum materials at high temperature and high strain rate, we designed tests to compare the mechanical behaviour of two high-purity molybdenum materials with different purities and two with different processing deformation conditions under dynamic impact compression in the temperature range of 297–1273 K. We analysed the molybdenum materials’ sensitivities to the strain-hardening effect, strain rate-strengthening effect, and temperature-softening effect as well as the comprehensive response to the combined effect of the strain rate and temperature, the adiabatic impact process, and the microstructure at high temperature and high strain rate. Furthermore, based on a modified Johnson–Cook constitutive model, we quantitatively analysed the flow stresses in these materials. The calculation results strongly agree with the test results. Our findings indicate that the high-purity molybdenum materials show consistent sensitivity to the combined effect of strain rate and temperature regarding the dynamic plastic properties. The materials with higher purity are less sensitive to the combined effect of the strain rate and temperature, and those with less processing deformation experience more pronounced strain-hardening effects. Under high strain rate at room temperature, these materials are highly susceptible to impact embrittlement and decreases in dynamic plastic properties due to intergranular fracture in the internal microstructure. However, increasing the impact environment temperature can significantly improve their plastic properties. The higher the temperature, the better the plastic properties and the higher the impact toughness.