A detailed study of anelastic effects in submicrocrystalline copper using resonance (~70 kHz, 2 K to 320 K) and sub-resonance (0.05-100 Hz, 300 K to 675 K) techniques was carried out. Several relaxation processes were found in the temperature range of 2 K - 675 K: the relaxation loss peaks (Q-1) near 35 (P1) and 90K (P2) with the activation energy and the pre-exponential factor (H1≈ 0.02 eV,το1≈ 10-9s andH2≈ 0.09 eV,το2≈ 10-11s) similar to those of the Bordoni and the Niblett-Wilks peaks in coarse-grained Cu. This suggests that the peaks are due to the thermally activated motion of dislocation kinks in the primary and secondary Peierls relief. The mean values of activation parameters (H3≈1.4-1.6 eV,το3≈10-17s) of a third thermally activated peak (P3), which was significantly broadened, can be interpreted as a grain boundary peak with uncoupled activation parametersH3*≈0.45 eV andτο3*≈10-14s. A pseudo peak PRis associated with irreversible recrystallization processes. The influence of annealing on the observed effects is also discussed.

The elastic and dissipative properties of nanostructured superconducting fiber composites Cu–32 vol.% Nb at frequencies of the order of 70kHz are investigated in the temperature range 2–320K. The composites, prepared by the method of intensive plastic deformation, consist of a fragmented copper matrix uniformly filled with niobium fibers having diameters of 200–500nm. It is found that the acoustic properties of the composite are mainly determined by the properties of the copper matrix. Near 90K a relaxation peak of the internal friction is observed, with activational parameters close to those of the Bordoni peak in copper. Below 12K the temperature dependence of the dynamic Young’s modulus is described by the thermally activated relaxation of two-level systems in a highly disordered medium. The influence of high-temperature annealing on the observed effects is investigated.

The temperature dependences of acoustic properties of nanostructured and polycrystalline zirconium are investigated in the temperature range of 100–340 K. The effect of severe plastic deformation and subsequent annealing on key parameters of the Koiwa–Hasiguti acoustic relaxation in zirconium is studied in detail. It is established that, due to intensive plastic deformation, the relaxation strength considerably increases, and the temperature and the width of the corresponding relaxation peak systematically decrease with reduction of the mean grain size in the samples. Annealing leads to a partial recovery of the relaxation strength and the peak temperature back to the initial values in undeformed samples, but the width of the relaxation peak shows an additional decrease. The majority of the effects observed can be explained by changes in dislocation subsystems of the samples during intensive plastic deformation and annealing. An influence of a random scatter of the relaxation time on the main parameters of the Koiwa–Hasiguti peak is established using the statistical analysis based on the lognormal distribution. It is shown that the parameter β of the lognormal distribution determines the width, height, and asymmetry of the peak and also allows estimating the relaxation strength from the peak height. An algorithm for retrieving the parameter β from experimental data is presented.