Gradient structures found in biological materials have served as a source of inspiration for
scientists seeking to enhance the performance of metals and alloys over the past decades …

Inspired by the gradient structures of biological materials, researchers have explored
compositional and structural gradients for about 40 years as an approach to enhance the …

Twin boundaries (TBs) are ubiquitous interfaces with specific structure in metallic materials.
They possess special interactions with dislocations and the fatigue cracking behaviors are …

The trade-off of strength and ductility of metals has long plagued materials scientists. To
resolve this issue, great efforts have been devoted over the past decades to developing a …

Dense networks of deformation twins endow metals and alloys with unprecedented
mechanical properties. However, the formation mechanism of these hierarchical twin …

Metallic materials are usually composed of single phase or multiple phases, which refers to
homogeneous regions with distinct types of the atom arrangement. The recent studies on …

The quest for both strength and toughness is perpetual in advanced material design;
unfortunately, these two mechanical properties are generally mutually exclusive. So far there …

The strength of nanocrystalline and nanotwinned metals stops increasing or even starts
decreasing when their grain size or twin thickness is below a critical size—a phenomenon …

Nearly 90 per cent of service failures of metallic components and structures are caused by
fatigue at cyclic stress amplitudes much lower than the tensile strength of the materials …

This article reviews recent basic research on two classes of twins: growth twins and
deformation twins. We focus primarily on studies that aim to understand, via experiments …