Mechanical characterization of boron carbide single crystals

Out-of-plane anisotropy in the mechanical response of boron carbide was studied by performing nanoindentation experiments on four specific crystallographic orientations of single crystals, that is, , , , and . For each orientation of the single crystals, in-plane variations of indentation modulus and hardness were also studied by monitoring the relative rotation between the crystal surface and a Berkovich indenter tip. A significant out-of-plane anisotropy in indentation modulus was observed with ~80 GPa difference between the highest and lowest values. A smaller but measurable out-of-plane anisotropy in indentation hardness was also observed. In-plane anisotropy, on the other hand, was found to be significantly influenced by the scatter in the data and geometrical imperfections of the indenter tip. Investigations of indentation pop-in events suggested that deformation is entirely elastic prior to the first pop-in. Furthermore, quasi-plastic flow along the orientation of the single crystals was found to be more homogeneous than the other tested orientations. For select indents, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of the indented regions showed formation of a quasi-plastic zone in the form of lattice rotation and various microstructural defects. The quasi-plastic zone grew in size with increasing the indentation depth. The TEM observations also suggested the crystal slip to be a potential mechanism of quasi-plasticity and a precursor for formation of amorphous bands that could eventually lead to cracking and fragmentation. The proposed failure mechanism provides valuable insights for calibrating constitutive computational models of failure in boron carbide.