Strengthening Mechanisms

Chapter 7
Dr. Gordana Cingara

roll
A d
A o

roll

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 Strengthening

The strength of a material is increased by

introducing obstacles to dislocation motion!

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 Strengthening Mechanisms

Definition: The strength of a material is increased by

introducing obstacles to dislocation motion!

Mechanisms:
1. Strain (Work) Hardening
2. Grain-Boundary Strengthening
3. Solid Solution Strengthening (alloying)
4. Phase Transformation (eutectoid
transformation in steel
5. Precipitation Hardening

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 Dislocation Slip Impeded by Obstacles

Obstacles:
 other dislocations
 grain boundaries
 solute atoms
 particles

What’s the strategy for developing strong materials?

• Increase the resistance, make stronger obstacles, and
more of them.

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 1. Strain hardening
(work hardening, cold working)

• Occurs during plastic deformation

• Ductile metal becomes harder and

stronger as it is plastically deformed!

• Why?
• OBSTACLES: Other dislocations

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 Cold Working (Strain Hardening)
• Deformation at room temperature (for most metals)
• Common forming operations reduce the cross-sectional area:

Forging force Rolling

die
Ao blank Ad roll
Ad
Ao
force
roll

Drawing
Extrusion
die Ad Ao
tensile container die holder
Ao force
force ram billet extrusion Ad
die
container die
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 Strain hardening

Cold work
%CW - percent cold work - degree of plastic deformation

roll
Ad
Ao
roll

to  t d
%CW  x 100
to
A0 - original area t0 - original height (sheet thickness)
Ad - area after deformation td - height after deformation

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 Strain hardening

Hardness Schematic
representation of
the changes of
STRENGTH mechanical
properties during
cold work
DUCTILITY

Amount of cold work

Amount of cold work

Original Cold
structure worked
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 Impact of cold work
Cold working - the stress increases with deformation!

The increase in yield strength The change in hardness and ductility

for 1040 steel, brass and copper produced by cold-working of copper
with percent of cold work 9
and brass (70%Cu-30%Zn)
 Strain Hardening Coefficient (n)

Metal Crystal n K (psi)

Structure
Titanium HCP 0.05 175,000
Annealed alloy steel BCC 0.15 93,000
Medium carbon steel BCC 0.10 228,000
- tempered
Molybdenum BCC 0.13 105,000
Copper FCC 0.54 46,000
Cu-30%Zn FCC 0.50 130,000

• n - low for HCP metals, higher for BCC, very high for FCC
• Metals with a low “n” respond poorly to cold working.
n = 0 – 1, most metals between 0.1- 0.5
• 0 - means that a material is perfectly plastic solid, 1 - represents a
100% elastic solid.
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 Strain (work) hardening

OBSTACLES to dislocation motion

• Other dislocations - dislocations interact with each other
• Dislocations create local distortion, these distortions
store energy

Strain field around

edge dislocation
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 Dislocation reactions
The ability of metal to plastically deform depends on the
ability of dislocations to move.
(Traffic Jam!):


F

b jog
Moving dislocations cut
through other dislocations
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 Strain (work) hardening

SLIP IN SINGLE CRYSTALS

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 Slip in single crystal

Shear stress

Deformation of a single
Slip lines - step marking
crystal under a tensile load.
on a zinc surface
14
 Shear component in applied tensile stress
 = F/A • Shear component exist in the
applied tensile stress resolved into
a shear component along a specific
 plane & direction within the plane!

 - angle between the slip and stress
Fr=Fcos direction
F - angle between the normal to the slip
plane & the applied stress direction

R = Fr/As - Resolved Shear Stress

As=A0/cos

Schmid’s Law

Relationships between  R  cos  cos

the tensile axis, slip
15
plane, and slip direction
 Strain (work) hardening

• One slip system, oriented most favourably, has the

largest shear stress

 R(max)   (cos  cos ) max

CRSS - CRITICAL RESOLVED SHEAR STRESS
(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

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 Strain (work) hardening

R   cos  cos 
  

R = 0 R = 0 R = /2
 = 90°  = 90°  = 45°
 = 45°

 maximum at  =  = 45º
Most favorable orientated slip
system <111>
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 Influence of crystal structure
Number of slip systems
• FCC: 12 slip systems, {111} <110>
(4 (111) planes, 3 [110] directions)
GOOD DUCTILITY - at least one slip system is
favorably oriented for slip!
• HCP: 3 slip systems, (0001) plane., 3 closed packed
directions

• BCC: 48 slip systems that are NEARLY closed

packed, {110} <111>.
Several slip systems are always properly oriented
for slip to occur, allowing BCC metals to also
have ductility.
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 Deformation Mechanisms
 Slip System - slip occurs on specific planes and directions
Slip plane - the most closed packed (highest planar
density) - the easiest slippage occurs
Slip direction - the most closed packed (highest linear density -
directions of movement

(111)

FCC – slip occurs on {111} planes in <110>

directions SLIP SYSTEM: {111} <110>
 Strain hardening of FCC single crystals
Shear stress-strain curve for FCC single crystal

Elastic behaviour when  < CRSS

crss - Critical Resolved Shear Stress
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Strain hardening - FCC single crystals
Stage 1 - EASY GLIDE
• Low hardening
• Slip on one slip system
• Dislocations are able to move over
large distances (no barriers)
• Low dislocation density
Stage II - LINEAR HARDENING
• Rapid hardening
• Interactions between dislocations
moving on intersecting slip planes
• Slip on more than one set of planes
• Much higher dislocation density
• Dislocations tangles begin to
develop

Stage III - decreasing hardening

21
rate
 Strain (work) hardening

Typical single-crystals stress strain curves

• FCC metals exhibit greater strain hardening than HCP

metals.
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 During cold working:
• Dislocation motion becomes more difficult
• Dislocation density increases
• Dislocations tangles formed

Dislocation tangles in strained Dislocation structure in

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stainless steel Ti after cold working
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 Strain hardening

Strain hardening
• Ductile metal becomes harder and stronger as it
is plastically deformed!
Why?
• OBSTACLES: Other dislocations

Hardness

STRENGTH

DUCTILITY

Amount of cold work

24
 Reinforced concrete
• Reinforce with steel rod
• Increases strength - even if cement matrix is cracked

Prestressed concrete
• Method for overcoming concrete’s natural weakness in
tension
• Steel under tension during setting of concrete (empty molds)
• After concrete has been placed and harden - tension release
(puts concrete under compressive force
• Concrete much stronger under compression
25
 Strain (work) hardening

PLASTIC DEFORMATION OF
POLYCRYSTALLINE
MATERIALS

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 2. Grain Boundary
Strengthening
The strength of a material is increased by introducing
obstacles to dislocation motion!

Why?
• OBSTACLES: grain boundaries in a polycrystalline
material!

• Applicable to pure metals and alloys

• Effect of grain boundaries on a strength

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 Grain Boundary Strengthening
Plastic deformation of a polycrystalline

Grain shape changes with plastic deformation

Callister W.D., Rethwisch
D.G, Materials Science &
•Before – equiaxed
Engineering •After - elongated 28
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 Grain Boundary Strengthening

Polycrystalline Slip

• Random crystallographic
orientation of grains
• The direction of slip varies from
one grain to another.
• The dislocation motion occurs
along the slip systems with
favorable orientation (the most
closed packed).
• GB do not open up, individual
grain is constrained.

Callister W.D., Rethwisch D.G,

Slip lines in a copper
Materials Science and Engineering (polished and deformed)
29
 Grain Boundary Strengthening

• The GB is a barrier to dislocation motion

• A dislocation passing into another grain have to
change its direction of motion

30
Callister W.D., Rethwisch D.G,
Materials Science and Engineering
 Grain Boundary Strengthening

• The GB is a barrier to dislocation motion

• A dislocation passing into another grain have to
change its direction of motion
• This becomes more difficult as the crystallographic
misorientation increases (small-angle GB not
effective)
31
Callister W.D., Rethwisch D.G,
Materials Science and Engineering
 Grain Boundary Strengthening

(Road Blocks!):

Dislocations can’t slip across a grain boundary!

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 Mid-term, Fall 2019

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 Grain Boundary Strengthening

Dislocations
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 Grain Boundary Strengthening

Dislocations are visible in Transmission Electron

Microscopy (TEM)
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 Hall-Petch equation (empirical)
y - yield stress
1
 y  o  ky o , ky - material constants
d d - average grain diameter
Grain size, d (mm)
Yield Strength (MPa)

The influence of
grain size on the
yield strength of a
brass (70Cu – 30Zn)

1
d-1/2 (mm-1/2) d 36
 Grain Boundary Strengthening

 Small grains → material is stronger and

harder

 Large (coarse) grains grains → material is

soft

 Grain size may be regulated by material

processing (manufacturing)

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 Optical microscopy
Grain Size Measurement
a. Intercept method

1
• Draw straight lines (1,2,3, 4,5,6,7) of the
same length (70 mm).
2
• 7x70 = 490 mm Line Intercepts
1 10

• Count the intersections 2

3
12
9
by
3
each line; 4
5
#1- 10, #2 - 12, #3 – 9 …. 6
7

S = 74 intercepts Tota 74
Optical Microscopy l

Magnification 350x • Calculate the average intercept length

490 mm : 74 = 6.162 mm
6.162 mm : 350 = 0.02 mm ~ 20 mm
(microns)

dav = 20 mm
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 Nanocrystalline materials
• Polycrystalline materials with very small grain size
below 100 nm
• Advanced Materials (Nano Technology)

A nanocrystalline
materail comprises a
large number of GBs

Schematic representation of equiaxed nanocrystalline metal

Atoms associated with individual grains
oAtoms constituting GB (Gleiter, 1989)
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 Nanocrystalline nickel – GRAINS
(conventional TEM)
b)
60

50
BF DF

Frequency, %
40

30

20

10

0
6 12 18 25 31 37 43 47
Grain Size, nm
10 nm

dav = 22.7 nm
Bright field image and grain size distribution
40
Avramovic- Cingara G. and Erb U.
Strengthening of nanocrystalline materials

Conventional deformation
mechanisms (Hall-Petch
Eq.) is invalid!

41

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 Mechanical properties
- nanocrystalline materials
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
Fatigue Strength (MPa) 241 275
108 cycles/air/250C

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3. Solid solution strengthening
(Alloying)

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 3. Solid solution strengthening
ALLOYING
• Alloys are stronger than pure metals! WHY?

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 3. Solid solution strengthening
ALLOYING

Foreign atoms go into either interstitial

or substitutional solid solution positions
• Impose lattice strains in the matrix!
• Dislocation movement is restricted!
• A greater stress for plastic deformation
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 Solid solution strengthening
• Impurities tends to segregate around dislocation cores.
They concentrate at dislocations, on a low density side.

• Stress field around impurities interact with dislocations

and hinder dislocation motion!

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 Alloys are stronger than high purity metals!

Example:
• UTS = 500 MPa - 70%Cu, 30%Zn (cartridge brass)
• UTS = 330 MPa - Copper

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 Recrystallization

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 Recrystallization

Recrystallization is the formation of a new

set of strain-free grains within a previously
cold-worked material by ANNEALING.

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 Cold work cycle
Hardness
• There’s a limit to how
much cold working
Strength
you can do!

Ductility
• The material will get
too hard for the rolling
mill.
Amount of cold work
• The material can
become too brittle: the
product breaks.

Original Cold
structure
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worked 50
 Processing includes stages:
1. PLASTIC DEFORMATION (work hardening)
2. ANNEALING:
a. Recovery
b. Recrystallization
c. Grain growth

Recovery Recrystallization Grain Growth

Cold
work
Time at temperature

Schematic representation of the recovery-recrystallization-

51 grain
growth sequences
 Dislocation density increases during
cold working

total dislocation length

Dislocation density =
unit volume

• Carefully grown single crystals  ~ 103 mm-2

• Deforming sample increases density  109-1010 mm-2
• Heat treatment (soft annealed) reduces  105-106 mm-2

o Plastic deformation stores energy in a solid!

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 Annealing - Recovery
(1st stage)

During ANNEALING:
• Enhanced dislocation motion starts
• Decreased in dislocation density
• Formation of low energy configurations

 Relieve of internal strain energy!

 The structure changes are not visible on the light
microscope (still elongated grains

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 Annealing- Recovery
 low angle grain boundaries are formed

dislocation motion

Realignment of edge dislocations

during recovery

Low angle boundaries – arrays

Avramovic-Cingara G., Perovic D. D.
McQueen H.J., Metall. Trans., 27A, (wall) of dislocations (TEM)
3478, 1996
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 Annealing – Recrystallization
(2nd stage)

• After recovery the grains are still elongated,

can be strained.
• Recrystallization annealing returns the
structure to the initial, unstrained
condition!
• Recovery and recrystallization are two basically
different phenomenas.

Kinetics of recrystallization is different 

nucleation and growth process
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 Annealing: Recrystallization (2nd stage)

• New grains nucleate

• Nucleation occurs at points of strong lattice curvature
(grain boundaries)

0.6 mm 0.6 mm

33% cold worked brass New crystals nucleate

after 3 s at 580C 56
 Annealing: Recrystallization (2nd stage)

New grains are formed:

• Have low dislocation densities, small in size
• Consume and replace parent cold-worked grains

Partial replacement of cold-

Fully recrystallized
worked grains by recrystallized
(8 s at 580oC) 57
ones (4 s at 580C)
 Annealing - Grain Growth
(3rd stage)
At longer times, average grain size increases!
• Small grains disappear
• Large grains continue to grow

Grain growth after Grain growth after

15 min at 580C 10 min at 720C
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 Effect of Annealing
• 1 hour treatment at TR decreases strength and increases
ductility
• Effects of cold work are nullified!
annealing temperature (ºC)
100 200 300 400 500 600 700
600 60
tensile strength (MPa)

tensile strength

ductility (%EL)
50
500
40

400 30

ductility 20
300

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 Annealing- Grain Growth
(3rd stage)

• The driving force for this stage is

minimizing grain boundary energy

• This is driven by grain boundary

curvature

• As the grain grow 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

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 Example
Pop-Can
material

Al-3%Mg after large Microstructure of annealed

deformation and 3 hrs of Al-3%Mg alloy showing
annealing at 180oC GRAINS

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 Annealing

Three stages:

Recovery:
• Small decrease in
strength
• same grains

Recrystallization
• Rapid decrease in
strength
• New grains

Grain Growth
• Small decrease in
strength
• Grain size increases

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 RESIDUAL STRESS

• Removed during
recovery annealing

• These are stresses that

remain in the part after
the force has
disappeared.
• They are produced from
nonuniform plastic
deformation (during
casting, welding, heat
treating or cold working)

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 Recrystallization process depends upon:

 Temperature of annealing (T)

 Time
 Amount of deformation (percent of cold work)
 Purity of material
 The initial grain size

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 Effect of Temperature and Time of annealing

The higher the temperature, the shorter the time

needed to finish the recrystallization!

• Recrystallization temperature: the temperature at

which the process is complete in one hour.
• Typically: T = 0.7 T (Tm - melting point)
r m

65
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 Recrystallization processing

Temperature of annealing (T)

Time

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 Amount of deformation (percent of cold work)

Variation of
recrystallization
temperature with percent
of cold work for iron

• Recrystallization temperature decreases as the %CW is

increased.
• Bellow a “critical deformation” recrysallization does not
occur.
67
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 Recrystallization processing

Impurities
• Impurities are extremely effective at decreasing
grain boundary mobility .

• Addition of impurities increases the amount of

stored energy at a given strain.

• The growth rate increase.

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 Recrystallization

1. Static Recrystallization:
cold deformation + annealing

2. HOT Working - Dynamic Recrystallization:

(deformation at elevated temperature)

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 Recrystallization
1. Static Recrystallization
Cold deformation + Annealing

+ FURNACE Annealing


Recrystallized Grains
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 Recrystallization
2. HOT WORKING = Dynamic Recrystallization
Deformation at elevated temperature!
Dislocation formation and rearrangement at high T  recrystallized grains!

Hot
Rolling
Mill
50% deformation

Static Recovery & Recrystallization

Equiaxed Deformed Dynamic
Structure Structure Recovery &
Recrystallization

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 Representative high temperature torsional stress
vs. equivalent strain curves
G. AVRAMOVIC-CINGARA, D.D. PEROVIC, H.J. McQUEEN,
METALLURGICAL & MATERIALSTRANS. A, 27A (1996) 3478
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 STRAIN RATE
4 1 0.1

G. AVRAMOVIC-
CINGARA, D.D.
PEROVIC, H.J.
McQUEEN,
METALLURGICAL &
MATERIALS TRANS. A,
27A (1996) 3478

Substructure of 8090 Al alloy deformed over a

wide range of strain rates and temperatures
73
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 What Have We Learned?

Key concepts:
• Materials deform due to the motion of dislocations
• Dislocations store energy.

• Strength is controlled by putting obstacles in the

way of dislocation motion.
• Strengthening can be due to grain size, solutes or
cold working.

• Strength is reduced by annealing.

• The process involves recovery, recrystallization
and grain growth.

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