On the Strain Rate- and Temperature-Dependent Tensile Behavior of Eutectic Sn–Pb Solder

The present study examines the thermomechanical strain-rate sensitivity of eutectic 63Sn–37Pb solder over a broad range of strain-rates from 0.0002 s^–1 to 200 s^–1, thus encompassing failure events between 1 h and 1 ms, at temperatures ranging from −60 °C to + 100 °C. A newly developed servohydraulic tensile method enabled this broad range of strain-rates to be evaluated by a single technique, eliminating ambiguity caused by evaluation across multiple experimental methods. Two solder conditions were compared: a normalized condition representing a solder joint that has largely stabilized ∼30 days after solidification and an aged condition representing ∼30 years at near-ambient temperatures. The tensile behavior of both conditions exhibited dramatic temperature and strain-rate sensitivity. At 100 °C, the yield strength increased from 5 MPa at 0.0002 s^–1 to 42 MPa at 200 s^–1, while at −60 °C, the yield strength increased from 57 MPa at 0.0002 s^–1 to 71 MPa at 200 s^–1. The room temperature strain rate-dependent behavior was also measured for the lead free SAC396 alloy. The SAC alloy exhibited thermal strain-rate sensitivity similar to Sn–Pb over this temperature and strain-rate regime. Microstructural characterization using backscatter electron imaging and electron backscatter diffraction showed distinct, morphological changes of the microstructure for different thermomechanical conditions as well as some systematic changes in the crystallographic texture. However, very little intergranular rotation was observed over the range of thermomechanical conditions, suggesting the dominance of a grain boundary sliding (GBS) deformation mechanism. Finally, a recently developed unified-creep-plasticity constitutive model for solder deformation was found to describe the observed behavior with much higher fidelity than the common Johnson–Cook model.