Advances in Superplasticity and in Superplastic Materials

Superplasticity and superplastic materials have gained considerable attention in recent years. The number of publications in these fields is increasing rapidly attesting to the current strong interest in these subjects. It can be stated that the technology of making complex shaped components by gas pressure techniques through use of superplastic sheet has come of age. On the other hand, bulk superplastic forming is still is its infancy. Considerable progress has been made in understanding the processes occurring in fine structure superplasticity and in internal stress superplasticity. Besides the traditional superplastic alloys based on nickel, titanium and zinc, new alloys have been developed which included microduplex stainless steel, aluminum–lithium and aluminum–magnesium alloys, mechanically allloyed aluminum, whisker and particle reinforced metal matrix composites, aluminum bronze and yttria-stabilized zirconia ceramic polycrystals.