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APL 102

Strengthening mechanisms
Concepts: Sessile disl., flow stress, grain size- & solid soln.- hardening, Hall-Petch relation

Lecture 36
 Recap
IIT Delhi Fracture toughness Strengthening Mechanisms


y1 large hardening
y0 small hardening
DBTT

 Sessile dislocation in an FCC crystal
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 Energetically favourable reaction

Imagine two Frank-Reed (FR) sources

1 are operating on two
[1 1 0]
1 2 non-parallel planes
[ 0 1 1]
2
1
[10 1 ]
(1 1 1) Leading dislocations from
( 1 11) 2
two FR sources meet at [110]


( 001) [110]

(001) not a favourable slip plane (CRSS is high)

The dislocation is immobile or sessile
 Sessile dislocation a barrier to other dislocations
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creating a dislocation pile-up

Sessile dislocation (barrier)
Leading dislocation

Glissile dislocation Trailing dislocation

(1 1 1)

( 1 11)
Piled up dislocations
Pile up creates back pressure on FR source which could also cease at some point
 Empirical relation for strain hardening or
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work hardening

 0  A 
 is the shear stress to move a dislocation in a crystal with
dislocation density 

o and A : empirical constants

o is base stress: stress required to move dislocation in absence of any
other dislocation
 Flow Stress behavior during strain hardening
 ,  , , T
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Variables in plastic deformation
K → strength coefficient
n → strain / work hardening coefficient
Cu and brass (n ~ 0.5) can be given large plastic strain more easily as
compared to steels with n ~ 0.15
When true strain is less than 1, the smaller value of ‘n’ dominates over a larger value of ‘n’

¶ ln   ¶
n 
‘n’ and ‘K’ for selected materials ¶ ln   ¶ !,T

Material n K (MPa)
Annealed Cu 0.54 320

Annealed Brass (70/30) 0.49 900

Annealed 0.5% C steel 0.26 530

0.6% carbon steel
0.10 1570
Quenched and Tempered (540C)
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Question for thought

Imagine a case of HCP crystal for strain hardening

Higher hardening?? Lower hardening??

Only one slip plane, dislocation motion will not be

interfered by dislocations on other planes: A case
of parallel slip planes
 Key ways of improving the strength of materials..
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Strengthening Mechanisms

 Work hardening or strain hardening or dislocation hardening

 Grain size strengthening or grain refinement

 Alloying or solid solution hardening

 Precipitation hardening or age hardening

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2-D Defect: Grain Boundaries

Single Crystal Polycrystal

No Grain Boundaries Many grain boundaries

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Grain Boundary
Grain 2

Grain 1

Grain boundary
Separates grains of different orientations
IIT Delhi Question for thought

How do grain boundaries contribute to strengthening?

 Grain size Strengthening
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 Grain boundary acts as a barrier to slip:

Discontinuity in slip plane across the boundary

 A dislocation cannot glide across a grain boundary:

Barrier “strength” increases with mis-orientation

 By decreasing grain size, we put more barrier in the path of moving

dislocations thereby the strength should increase
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Discontinuity of a slip plane across a grain Boundary

Slip plane

Dislocation

Grain Boundary
 Grain Size - Dislocation motion in Polycrystals
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 Slip planes & directions change from one crystal to

another

 τR will vary from one crystal to another

 The crystal with the largest τR yields first

 Other (less favorably oriented) crystals yield later

300 mm

Slip Lines on a polycrystalline piece of Cu

14
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Question for thought
Which among the two will provide higher strengthening?

Coarse Grains Fine Grains

 Grain size Strengthening
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 Reducing grain size means more

barrier to slip

 Decreasing grain size not only

increases strength but it also
increases toughness of the material
IIT Delhi Question for thought

Do the yield strength depend on the grain size

of a material?
 Hall-Petch relation
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Hall-Petch equation - The relationship between yield strength and

grain size can be given as-

σy: yield strength

d : average grain diameter
σ0, k: constants for a particular material
σ0 : Yield strength of single crystal
 Experimental Validation: Hall-Petch relation
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70 Cu - 30 Zn
brass alloy

For ASTM Grain Size Number, N,

no of grains per inch2 at 100X is (n)
equal to 2N-1 i.e. n=2N-1

ASTM No. 1 would mean a grain size of 0.25 mm

Decreasing grain size

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Grain Size Strengthening

20
IIT Delhi Question for thought
How to refine grain size--??

1. Solidification: Faster cooling rate

2. Cold deformation and annealing treatment:

Deformation in solid state and then followed by heat treatment

The above processes will be obvious when we will discuss phase

transformation
 Key ways of improving the strength of materials..
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Strengthening Mechanisms

 Work hardening or strain hardening or dislocation hardening

 Grain size strengthening or grain refinement

 Alloying or solid solution hardening

 Precipitation hardening or age hardening

 Alloying
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Alloys are stronger than pure metals

Why alloys are stronger??!!

 Solid Solution strengthening
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What is solid solutions?

 Presence of solute in matrix/solution

 Mixture of two or more elements
 Solute atoms: a zero dimensional defect or a point defect
 Two types:
1. Interstitial solid solution
2. Substitutional solid solution
 Interstitial Solid Solution
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Distortion caused by a
Perfect Crystal
large interstitial atom
 Substitutional Solid Solution
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Small solute atom Large solute atom

Solute atom: a zero-dimensional point defect

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Solid solution hardening
 Foreign atom distort the host lattice and generate the stress

Substitutional element of
Smaller and Larger size than
the host atom size
Compressive stress Tensile stress

 Interstitial or substitutional impurities cause lattice strain and interact with

dislocation strain fields thereby hinder dislocation motion

 Impurities diffuse and segregate around dislocation to find atomic sites more
suited to their radii: Reduces strain energy + anchors dislocation
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Dislocation-Solute interaction

Smaller and larger substitutional impurities diffuse into strained regions around
dislocations leading to partial cancellation of impurity-dislocation lattice strains.
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Factors controlling the stress required
1. Strain field intensity

1. Size difference
2. Relative elastic modulus

2. Concentration of solute

Size difference and concentration

go against each other
 Example: Solid solution strengthening
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Brass: Strength increases with wt% Zn

Empirical relation:  y ~ C 1 / 2
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Effect of solute concentration on strength

200 Sn (1.51)
Be (1.12)
Matrix = Cu (r = 1.28 Å)
150
Yield Strength (Ma)

(Values in parenthesis are

100 atomic radius values in Å)

Zn (1.31)
50

0 10 20 30 40
Solute Concentration (Atom %) →
 Solid Solution Strengthening
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Summary

Solute Strains in the

atoms surrounding crystal

Strong Obstacle to dislocation

crystal motion

Alloys stronger than pure metals

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APL 102
Minor 2 Solutions in Moodle

Class performance
Top mark : 54.5
Least mark : 3 !!
Average : 29.6
 Announcement
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 Compensating Class: 31st October (Today) from 6:00 to 6:50 pm, LH 325

 Quiz 2: November 1st (Wednesday) @ 5:30 pm (Syllabus: Minor 1 & Topics

after Minor 2 till 25th Oct.)
LH 108 – Monday’s & Tuesday’s Lab groups
LH 121 – Thursday’s & Friday’s Lab groups
 Buffer lab: E-mail request to be given by 8th Nov.
- Will happen in the last week (13th to 16th Nov)
- only for students who missed due to medical/emergency reasons

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