Md.

Rafiqul Islam
Lecturer
Department of MME
BUET, Dhaka
 Strengthening strategies :
 Grain strengthening
 Hall-Petch equation
 Solid solution strengthening
 Principle of alloying
 Work hardening
 Anisotropy in structure
 Restoring ductility after work hardening
 Precipitation hardening
Reference:
1. WD Callister, Jr. Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction,
5th Ed., Ch. 7, pp.166-179.
 To strengthen a metal,
make it harder for dislocations to move

 There are 4 strategies for strengthening:

 Grain strengthening
 Solid solution strengthening
 Work/strain hardening
 Precipitation hardening

The price for enhancement of strength and hardness

is in the reduction of ductility !!
 Obstacle: Grain boundary
Creates slip plane discontinues – causing difficulty in dislocation motion

 Degree of obstacle increases

with disorientation.

 Small grain size

More barrier to slip

Adjacent grains have different

crystallographic orientations
 The finer the grains, the larger the area of grain
boundaries that impedes dislocation motion
Grain-size reduction also improves toughness of material

 Variation of yield strength with grain size

according to Hall-Petch relation:

sy = s0 + ky d -½ s0, ky are material constants

d is average grain size

 Grain size d can be controlled by:

 the rate of solidification
 plastic deformation
 appropriate heat treatment
Example: Brass (Cu-30Zn alloy)

sy = s0 + ky d-½
 Obstacle: Impurity atoms
offers obstruction in dislocation motion

 Smaller and larger substitutional tension compression

impurities produce localized
stresses at the lattice
 These impurities tend to diffuse
into strained regions around the
dislocation
small substitutional atom large substitutional atom
stresses around an impurity atom
 Principle of Alloying
 Alloys are usually stronger than pure metals of the solvent.
 Interstitial or substitutional impurities in a solution cause lattice strain. As
a result, these impurities interact with dislocation strain fields and hinder
dislocation motion.
 Impurities tend to diffuse and segregate around the dislocation core
to find atomic sites more suited to their radii. This reduces the overall
strain energy but “anchor” the dislocation.
 Thus, a greater applied stress is necessary to:
(1) torn away a dislocation from impurity pinning and initiate plastic
deformation, and then
(2) continue plastic deformation for solid solution alloys.
Example: Alloying with Ni strengthens Cu

60

Elongation in 2 inch (%)

Tensile Strength (MPa)

400 50

40
300
30

200 20
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
Ni Content (wt.%) Ni Content (wt.%)

What happens to the right side of these diagrams,

i.e., alloys containing more than 50 wt.% Ni?
 Obstacle: Already existing dislocations
offers obstruction in motion of other dislocations

 Also known as strain hardening, work hardening, or cold working

 The reason for strain hardening is the increase of dislocation density
with plastic deformation due to dislocation multiplication and formation
of new ones
 The average distance between dislocations decreases and dislocations
start blocking the motion of each other.
 Like dislocations repeal, opposite dislocations attract
 Dislocations become entangled with one another.
 Dislocation motion becomes more difficult.

 Ductile metals become stronger when they are deformed plastically

at temperatures well below the melting point.
 Common cold working operations
Cold working – room temperature deformation

The percent cold work, %CW, is just another measure of the degree of
plastic deformation, in addition to strain or %EL. It is also known as %RA.
%CW = 100(Ao- Ad)/Ao
 σy for plastically deformed sample is higher than that for annealed
sample due to hardening (materials becomes stronger).
TS
hardening

%EL or %RA

YS

Stress-strain diagram Effect of cold work on

showing strain hardening stress-strain diagram
 Yield strength and hardness increased due to strain hardening
but ductility decreased (material becomes more brittle).
Yield Strength (MPa)

Ductility (%EL)

Cold Work (%CW) Cold Work (%CW)

 Anisotropy in Structure
 During cold working operations, the grains are deformed along
the working directions and makes the material anisotropic.

Anisotropic material

Isotropic material
Two undeformed specimens of the mild steel are to be plastically, deformed
by reducing their cross-sectional areas. One has a circular cross section and
the other is rectangular; during deformation the circular cross section is to
remain circular, and the rectangular is to remain as such. Their original and
deformed dimensions are given in Table 1.Which of these specimens will be
the hardest after plastic deformation, and why ?
Circular Rectangular
(diameter, mm) (mm)
Original dimensions 18.0 20 x 50
Deformed 15.9 13.7 x 55.1
dimensions

Solution:
For circular one
For rectangular one

Therefore, the deformed rectangular specimen will be harder.

 Restoring Ductility after Work Hardening

 1 hr heat treatment at different annealing temperatures

 Effect of cold work reversed.
TS decreased while %EL increased !!

 Restoration of ductility in 2 steps:

1. recovery
2. recrystallisation

 Sometimes recrystallisation is followed by grain growth.

Restoring Ductility
after Work Hardening

Recovery Recrystallisation Grain growth

 Rigidity
 increased diffusion  Driving force
some residual stresses remained in some grains even after recovery
 enhanced dislocation motion (single crystal)
stage.
 decreased dislocation density by annihilation.
 these strained grains replaced by new strain-free grains with low
 relieved internal strain energy dislocation density.

 this occurs through nucleation and growth of new grains.

Obstacle: Hard second phase particles
offers obstruction in motion of dislocations
Example: Ceramics in metals (e.g., SiC in Iron or Aluminum)
Hard precipitates are difficult to shear!!
 Precipitation Hardening
For Al-4% Cu alloy
The solubility of Cu in the a phase increases with
increasing temperature.

Step 1, solution heat treating:

Heat treat the alloy in the α -phase temperature range
until it becomes a solid solution.

Step 2, quenching: is to rapidly cool the solid solution

to room temperature to make it supersaturated in Cu. 1,2

Step 3, aging: is to allow the strengthening phase to

precipitate from the supersaturated solid
solution. Aging by heating (e.g., at 190°C) is called artificial 3
aging and aging
without heating is called natural aging.