It is necessary for grain boundary dislocations to slide and climb during the grain boundary sliding process that dominates fine-grained superplastic deformation. The process of climb requires either an influx of vacanices to the grain boundary plane or a local generation of vacancies. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations of grain boundaries in superplastically deformed Al-Mg-Mn aloys quenched under load from the deformation temperature have revealed the presence of nano-scale cavities resulting from a localized supersaturation of vacancies at the grain boundary. Compositional measurements along interfaces have also shown an effect of solute atoms on the local structure. This is shown to result from a coup;ling of vacancy and solute atom flows during deformaton and quenching Calculations of the localized vacancy concentration indicate that the supersaturation along the grain boundary can be as much as a factor of ten. The effects of the local supersaturation and solute atom movement on defomation rates and cavity nucleation and growth will be discussed.
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