7.

STRENGTHENING MECHANISMS
Dislocations and Plastic Deformation, (Chapters 4 & 7)

Strengthening – the strength of a crystalline material is increased by introducing obstacles to

dislocation motion.
Obstacles include:
• Other dislocations
• Grain boundaries
• Solute atoms
• Particles/precipitation
What’s the strategy for developing strong materials? Increase the resistance; make stronger
obstacles, and more of them.

Strengthening mechanisms

1. Strain (work) hardening

2. Grain-boundary strengthening
3. Solid solution strengthening
4. Precipitation hardening
5. Metal-matrix composite strengthening
6. Strengthening of steel alloys

7.1 - Strain (work) Hardening

Cold working - deformation ~ room temperature (when metal is deformed at temperatures that
are low to its melting point, it’s cold to be cold worked).

Percent cold work:

% CW = ( A0 – Ad) ) x 100 A0 - original area

A0 Ad - area after deformation

% CW = ( (t0 – td) ) x 100

t0 t0 - original thickness
td - thickness after deformation

• Common forming operations reduce the cross-sectional area:

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• The strength increases with deformation (ductility decreases)!

The change in hardness and ductility

Changes of mechanical properties produced by cold-working of copper &
during cold work (schematic) cartridge brass (70%Cu-30%Zn)

OBSTACLES to dislocation motion:

• Other dislocations - dislocations interact with each other!

• Dislocations create local distortion and these distortions store the energy

Lattice strain field around

edge dislocations Lattice strain interactions between dislocations

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 Slip in single crystals
= F/A - applied tensile stress

• Shear component exist in applied tensile

stress resolved into a shear component
along a specific plane & direction within
the plane!
• -angle between the slip and stress
F =Fcos
r directions,
• - angle between the normal to the slip plane
and direction within that plane

Resolved Shear Stress (R) – applied

tensile stress resolved into a shear
component along a specific plane and
direction within that plane.

Resolved shear stress: R = Fr/As

Geometrical relationships between the
tensile axis, slip plane, and slip direction F =Fcos
r
A =A /cos
s 0

Schmid’s Law:  R=  cos  cos

Single crystal has a number of different slip systems, each with different orientations ( ) to the
stress axis. The slip system oriented most favourably with the largest resolved shear stress:

 R(max) =  (cos  cos ) max

R(max) = crss
Critical Resolved Shear Stress (crss) – minimum shear stress to initiate slip

• Slip starts when the shear stress reaches crss

• Equivalent to the yield strength of the single crystal
• Condition for the dislocation motion!
• crss - material parameter

Slip in single crystal starts on this most favorably oriented slip system!

The best condition when:  =  = 450

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Strain hardening of single crystals

The ability of metal to plastically deform depends on the ability of dislocations to

move. Single crystal represents the most ideal condition for the theoretical studies of
strengthening.

 Typical shear stress-strain

curve of a pure FCC single
crystal

STAGE I: Easy Glide

• Low strain hardening rate
• Dislocations are able to move over large distances
• Slip occurs on one slip system
• Low dislocation density

STAGE II: Linear Hardening

• Hardening occurs rapidly
• Hardening – due to interactions between dislocations
moving on intersecting slip planes
• Slip occurs on more than one set of planes
• Much higher dislocation density
• Dislocations tangles begin to develop

STAGE III
• Decreasing rate of strain hardening.
Dislocation structure in Ti
• Dislocations entangle with each other after cold working
during cold work.
• Dislocation motion becomes more difficult.

FCC metals exhibit greater strain

hardening than HCP metals.

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 During plastic deformation:
• Dislocation density increases
• Dislocation motion becomes more difficult
• Dislocations tangles formed

Strain hardening occurs in single crystals and polycrystalline materials!

7.2 - Grain-boundary Strengthening

Plastic deformation of a polycrystalline materials

OBSTACLES: grain boundaries in a polycrystalline material!

Applicable to pure metals and alloys! Effect of grain boundaries on a strength!

• Random orientation of numerous grains

• For each grain, slip occurs along the most favourable slip system!
• Evidence of a slip: SLIP LINES on the surface of a polycrystalline specimen
• During deformation, mechanical integrity of a crystal is maintained, and grain boundaries do
not open up
• Each individual grain is constrained

Slip lines

Slip lines in a copper (a) Before deformation (b) after deformation

(polished and deformed) ISOTROPIC ANISOTROPIC

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 Dislocations can’t glide
across a grain boundary.

• The grain boundary is a barrier to dislocation motion!

• A dislocation passing into another grain must change its direction of motion
• This becomes more difficult as the crystallographic misorientation increases
(small-angle GB not effective)

The stress concentration at or near the grain

boundaries will activate source and send a
series of dislocations toward the adjacent
grain boundaries.

Dislocation pile-up (TEM)

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 • Small grains - material is stronger and harder
• Large, coarse grains – material is soft
• Grain size may be regulated by material processing

The Hall-Petch Equation

y = o + kd-1/2
y - yield stress
o and k - material constants,
d - average grain diameter

Nanocrystalline materials

- Polycrystalline materials with very small grain size below 100 nm

- A nanocrystalline metals gave a high number of grain boundaries.
- Advanced Materials (Nano Technology)
- Conventional deformation mechanisms (Hall-Petch Eq.) is invalid!

High Resolution TEM showing grain boundaries of

three nano-rains (triple junction) (Gordana Cingara,
Ni-Fe alloy)

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Mechanical Properties (*ASM Metals Handbook)

Property Conventional Nano-Ni

100 nm 10 nm
Yield Strength (MPa), 250C 103 690 >900
Yield Strength (MPa), 3500C 620
UTS (MPa), 250C 403 1100 >2000
UTS (MPa), 3500C 760
Tensile Elongation (%), 250C 50 >15 1
Elongation in Bending >40
(%), 250C
Modulus of Elasticity (GPa) 207 214 204
Vickers Hardness (kg/mm2) 140 300 650

7.3 - Solid Solution Strengthening

ALLOYING

• Alloys are stronger than pure metals! WHY?

• Foreign atoms go into either interstitial or substitutional solid solutions

• Impose lattice strains in the matrix
• Dislocation movement is restricted
• A greater stress for plastic deformation

• Large impurities concentrate at dislocations on low density side

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 RECRYSTALLIZATION

Recrystallization is the formation of a new set of strain-free grains within a previously

cold-worked material.

1. Plastic deformation (work hardening)

2. Annealing (three stages during heat treatment):
a. Recovery
b. Recrystallization
c. Grain growth

PLASTIC DEFORMATION (work hardening)

Dislocation density:
• Carefully grown single crystals → ~ 103 mm-2
• Deforming sample increases density → 109-1010 mm-2
• Heat treatment (soft annealed) reduces → 105-106 mm-2

Many defects are forced into the crystal lattice, and these defects along with elastic strains serve as
mechanisms for storage of energy in the alloy.

ANNEALING

Allows the material to move closer to the thermodynamically most stable state.

1st stage, Annealing – Recovery

• During recovery, some of the stored internal strain energy is relieved by dislocation
motion.
• A small decrease in strength

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 Recovery Mechanisms
- Rearangement of dislocations – forming of SUBGRAINS
(subgrain – a grain surrounded with low angle boundaries)
- Annihilation of dislocations
- Subgrain growth
- Dislocation climb

Low angle boundaries – arrays (wall) of

dislocations (TEM); Avramovic-Cingara G.,
Perovic D. D. McQueen H.J., Metall. Trans., 27A,
3478, 1996 • Polygonization – annealing causes the edge dislocations to line up over one another in
small-angle tilt boundaries (subbboundaries).
• Subgrains constitute the substructure of a metal.

2nd stage, Annealing – Recrystallization

An entirely new set of grains is formed.

• Recovery and recrystallization are two basically different phenomena. Recovery starts rapidly and
proceeds at a slower and slower rate as the driving force of the reaction is expanded.

Recrystallization  nucleation and growth process

Nucleation occurs at points of strong lattice curvature (slip-line intersections,

deformation twin intersections, and areas close to grain boundaries)

• Nucleation occurs at points of strong lattice curvature (slip-line intersections, and areas
close to grain boundaries)
• The new grains grow into the old ones (lower dislocation density)
• New grains nucleate in this stage
• The driving force for this activity is stored energy

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 EXAMPLE – deformed brass (Cu-Zn ally):

33% cold New crystals

worked nucleate after
brass 3 sec. at 580

Partial
replacement Fully
of grains recrystallized

3rd stage, Annealing - Grain growth

• Driving force for grain growth lies in the surface energy of grain boundaries
• As the grain grow in size and their numbers decrease, the grain boundary area diminishes and
the total surface energy is lowered
• Principle similar the surface energy of the soap film

e) Grain growth after 15 min at 580C

f) Grain growth after 10 min at 720C

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 Summary - three stages:

Recovery:
- Small decrease in strength
- The same grains

Recrystallization
- Rapid decrease in strength
- New grains

Grain Growth
- Small decrease in strength
- Grain size increases

Recrystallization process is dependent upon:

a. Temperature of annealing
b. Time
c. Amount of deformation
d. The initial grain size
e. Purity

a. Recrystallization temperature: The temperature at which the process is complete in

one hour.
Typically: Tr = 0.7 Tm (Tm - melting point)

The higher the temperature, the shorter the time needed

to finish the recrystallization

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 d. Prior grain size: At a given strain there is more stored energy in a fine-grained metal
because more complex deformation required by the fine grains.

e) Impurities: impurities are extremely effective at decreasing grain boundary mobility!

Cold Deformation + Annealing: Static Recrystallization

+ FURNACE Annealing

Hot Working: Dynamic Recrystallization (deformation at elevated

temperature)
Deformation at elevated temperature!
Dislocation formation and rearrangement at high T  recrystallized grains!

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 Hot Working

Static Recovery & Recrystallization

High temperature deformation (hot working)

Representative high temperature torsional stress vs. equivalent strain curves,

Avramovic-Cingara G., Perovic D. D. McQueen H.J., Metall. Trans., 27A,

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