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APL 102

Strengthening mechanisms & Phase transformations

Concepts: precipitates, age hardening, dislocation- shearing & bowing, solidification

Lecture 37
 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

 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

 Schematic representation of precipitate formation
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Coherent interface Incoherent interface

Classic example of Age hardening is Increasing ageing time

Duralumin (Al – 4%Cu) alloy
IIT Delhi What is coherent/incoherent interface?

coherent incoherent
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Precipitation/Age hardening
What is precipitate/age hardening???

Size, spacing and volume fraction of particles play a major role in deciding the
properties of PH alloys
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Dislocation – Precipitate interaction
Dislocation-precipitate interaction can broadly be of two kinds:

Dislocation can

1. Either cut through the precipitate particles (small precipitate)

Or
2. They can bypass the precipitates
 1. Precipitate cutting
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Side-view  

before after
 Precipitation Strengthening
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 Hard precipitates are difficult to shear

e.g. Ceramic ppts. in metals (SiC in Iron or Aluminum, Fe3C in Steel)

precipitate
Large shear stress needed
Side View to move dislocation toward
precipitate and shear it.

Unslipped part of slip plane Dislocation

Top View
“advances” but
precipitates act as
“pinning” sites with
S spacing S.
Slipped part of slip plane

Result:
 Mechanism of particle shearing
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 2. Dislocation bypassing the precipitate
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Side-view

Typical interparticle spacing (L) is of the order of 100-200 Å

b
Orowan strengthening 
L
 Precipitation Strengthening
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 Hard precipitates are difficult to shear

e.g. Ceramic ppts. in metals (SiC in Iron or Aluminum, Fe3C in Steel)

precipitate
Large shear stress needed
Side View to move dislocation toward
precipitate and shear it.

Unslipped part of slip plane Dislocation

Top View
“advances” but
precipitates act as
“pinning” sites with
S spacing S.
Slipped part of slip plane

Result:
 Mechanism of dislocation bowing
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Dislocation loops around particles

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Precipitation Strengthening
Dislocations cutting through particles:

where τ is material strength, r is the second phase particle radius, γ is the surface energy,
b is the magnitude of the Burgers vector, and L is the spacing between pinning points.
Strength is proportional to r , the radius of the precipitate particles.

The strength of a material increases with increasing r.

Dislocations bowing around particle:

Dislocation bowing, also called Orowan strengthening is more likely to occur when the particle
density in the material is higher.
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SIZE EFFECTS
As the size of the second
phase particle increases

Cutting through it becomes

more difficult

Dislocations tend to bow

around the particle by
Orowan Looping

This critical radius is typically 5-30 nm.

 Microstructure of Age hardened material
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Classic example of Age hardening is

Duralumin (Al – 4%Cu) alloy
 Precipitation strengthening effect on TS, %EL
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2014 Al Alloy
 TS peaks with precipitation time  %EL reaches minimum
 Increasing T accelerates process with precipitation time

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%EL (2in sample)

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149°C
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300 204°C 204°C 149°C

200 0
1min 1h 1day 1mo 1yr 1min 1h 1day 1mo 1yr
precipitation heat treat time (h) 17 precipitation heat treat time (h)
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Phase transformations
IIT Delhi Question for thought

What is phase transformation?

Or
Why a phase transformation occurs?

Change in phases present in a material due to change in their equilibrium conditions, i.e. as a
function of temperature or pressure or composition.
IIT Delhi  The phases present in a material may undergo change as a function of
temperature/pressure/composition. Such changes are called phase transformations.

 Knowledge of this allows us to deliberately suppress or induce

certain kind of transformation in the material.

 This in turn could produce favourable microstructure and hence the properties of
the material.

MICROSTRUCTURE PROPERTIES
 Phase transformation – common example
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Phase transformation during solidification process

L (liquid)  β (solid)
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How was the statue made?

Investment casting

Liquid-to-solid transformation

An example of phase transformation

Shiva-Parvati, Chola Bronze

Ball State University
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How does one produce single crystal of Si
for electronic applications?

Czochralski crystal pulling technique

IIT Delhi How does one harden a
steel component?

Quenching of steel
components

A solid solid phase

transformation
 Many forms of Phase transformation
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Solid 1 Solid 2
Solid state phase
transformation

condensation
gas
Liquid

evaporation
 Announcement
IIT Delhi  Impact energy lab location (Next Week Lab):
- Room No.:136, Block IV, Strength of Materials Lab

 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

 Updated Lab marks & Minor 1 & 2, Quiz 1 & 2 marks:

Will be uploaded by 3rd Nov. Last date for informing discrepancies 10th Nov.
E-mail with a picture of the mark (subject: Re: APL 102…)