♣YIELD STRENGTH AND HEAT TREATMENT

Yield strength is an important indictor for the most engineering design, which is
influenced by many factors such as raw material quality, chemical composition,
forming process, heat treatment process, etc. This article presents an example
indicating the effect of heat treatment on yield strength of AISI 4140 alloy steel.

1. YIELD STRENGTH

Yield strength is the amount of stress at which plastic deformation becomes

noticeable and significant. Fig.1 is an engineering stress-strain diagram in tensile
test. Because there is no definite point on the curve where elastic strain ends and
plastic strain begins, the yield strength is chosen to be that strength when a definite
amount of plastic strain has occurred. For the general engineering structural design,
the yield strength is chosen when 0,2 percent plastic strain has taken place. The
0.2% yield strength or the 0.2% offset yield strength is calculated at 0.2% offset
from the original cross-sectional area of the sample (s=P/A).

During yielding stage, the material deforms without an increase in applied load, but
during the strain hardening stage, the material undergoes changes in its atomic and
crystalline structure, resulting in increased resistance of material to further
deformation.

Yield strength is a very important value for use in engineering structural design. If
we are designing a component that must support a force during use, we must be
sure that the component does not plastically deform. We must therefore select a
material that has high yield strength, or we must make the component large
enough so that the applied force produces a stress that is below the yield strength.
In contrast, the tensile strength is relatively unimportant for ductile materials
selection and application since too much plastic deformation takes place before it is
reached. However, the tensile strength can give some indication of the materials,
such as hardness and material defects.

Fig.1 Stress – strain diagram