TO MAKE STRONGER

Sub-topics

The modulus strength chart

Manipulating strength
Hardening strengthening
Grain boundary design
Cold working

STRENGTHENED MATERIALS
Many engineering materials can be strengthened
through various hardening mechanisms however,
an increase in strength almost always results
in a decrease in ductility

HOW TO STRENGTHEN MATERIALS?

oSolid-solution strengthening;
oStrain (work) hardening;
oGrain size reduction

GRAIN BOUNDARIES
Volume defect -> disordered solid
Internal surface -> higher energy regions
GB

trap for impurities

arrest dislocations

GB
engineering
Grain is a virtual single crystal
Polycrystalline materials consist
of perfect crystals and boundaries

The way to make materials

stronger is to make it
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harder for dislocations
movements

GRAIN BOUNDARY HARDENING

Grain size D is typically 10-100 m
Dislocations cannot simply slide from
one grain to the next because the
slip planes do not line up
Effect of grain boundaries on the
shear strength required for a
dislocation to move

IS A GRAIN BOUNDARY A BARRIER FOR

DISLOCATION MOTION?
Note: for high-angle grain
boundaries, it may not be the
case that dislocations traverse
grain boundaries during
deformation;
rather, a stress concentration
ahead of a slip plane in one
grain may activate sources
of new dislocations in an
adjacent grain.
The grain boundary acts as a barrier to dislocation motion for two
reasons:
1. Since the two grains are of different orientations, a dislocation
passing into grain B will have to change its direction of motion;
this becomes more difficult as the crystallographic misorientation
increases.
2. The atomic disorder within a grain boundary region will result in a
discontinuity of slip planes from one grain into the other.

DISLOCATIONS

AND GRAIN

BOUNDARIES
Dislocations are positioned
closer together and
dislocations movement in
the net is hindered by
interaction between them.
Together with the reduced
elastic strain energy, this
fact results in dislocations
that are relatively immobile
and the imposed stress
necessary to deform a
material increases with
decrease in grain size.

High-angle
grain
boundaries

Low-angle
grain
boundaries
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HALL-PETCH EQUATION
Why is a fine-grained material is harder and stronger than coarse grained?

The relation between yield stress and grain size is

described mathematically by
the Hall-Petch equation

Hall-Petch constants
Material

o [MPa] k [MPa m1/2]

Copper

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0.11

Titanium

80

0.40

Mild steel

70

0.74

Ni3Al

300

1.70

where ky is the strengthening

coefficient (a constant unique
to each material), o is a
materials constant for the
starting stress for dislocation
movement (or the resistance
of the lattice to dislocation
motion), d is the grain
diameter, and y is the yield
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stress.

HALL-PETCH STRENGTHENING LIMIT

Can we manipulate
with grain size?

Grain size may be regulated by

the rate of solidification from
the liquid phase, and also by
plastic deformation followed by
an appropriate heat treatment

Strengthening is
limited by the
size of dislocations.
Once the grain size
reaches about 10 nm,
grain boundaries start
to slide.
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D = 10 nm

GRAIN BOUNDARY ENGINEERING

Grain boundary strengthening
(or Hall-Petch strengthening) is
a method of strengthening
materials by changing their
average grain size.
It is based on the observation that
grain boundaries impede
dislocation movement and
that the number of dislocations
within a grain have an effect on
how easily dislocations can
The influence of
traverse grain boundaries and
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grain size on the yield strength
travel from grain to grain.
of a 70 Cu30 Zn brass alloy.

GRAIN BOUNDARY STRENGTHENING

By changing grain size one can influence dislocation
movement and yield strength.
This is a schematic roughly illustrating the
concept of dislocation pile up and how it
effects the strength of the material.
A material with larger grain size is able to
have more dislocation to pile up leading to
a bigger driving force for dislocations to
move from one grain to another.
Thus you will have to apply less force to
move a dislocation from a larger than from
a smaller grain, leading materials with
smaller grains to exhibit higher yield
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stress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-Petch

MULTIPLICATION OF DISLOCATIONS
Frank & Read proposed that dislocations
could be generated from existing
dislocations
The dislocation line AB bulges out
(A and B are anchored by impurities)
and produces slip as the shear
stress is applied.
The maximum for
semicircle dislocation
bulge
Beyond this point, the dislocation loop
continues to expand till parts m and n
meet and annihilate each other to form a
large loop and a new dislocation.
Note: Repeating of this process producing a dislocation
loop, which produces slip of one Burgers vector along
the slip plane

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Two factors determine the influence of obstacles

on dislocation movement:
1) Spacing
2) Strength

L: distance between obstacle and the slip plane

NL: number of obstacles touching unit length of dislocation line
p: pinning force exerted by obstacle on dislocation line
: dimensionless constant characterizing the strength of obstacle
The shear stress needed to force
the dislocation through a field
of obstacles

WORK HARDENING - BASICS

Accumulation of dislocations
generated by plastic deformation
Dislocation density:
Length of dislocation lines /
unit volume (m/m3)
Dislocations start moving when
the force b per unit length
exceed the lattice resistance f
The strain hardening
phenomenon is explained on
the basis of
Dislocationdislocation
strain field interactions

bf
Line tension:

T Eb2

As the dislocation density increases, this resistance to dislocation motion by

other dislocations becomes more pronounced. Thus, the imposed stress
necessary to deform a metal increases with increasing cold work.

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WHAT TO DO IF A STRONG MATERIAL IS

NEEDED?
Because macroscopic plastic deformation
corresponds to the motion of large numbers of
dislocations, the ability of a metal to plastically
deform depends on the ability of dislocations to move.
Since hardness and strength (both yield and tensile)
are related to the ease with which plastic
deformation can be made to occur, by reducing the
mobility of dislocations, the mechanical strength
may be enhanced; that is, greater mechanical forces
will be required to initiate plastic deformation.
The more unconstrained the dislocation motion, the
greater is the facility with which a metal may
deform, and the softer and weaker it becomes.
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WORK HARDENING DISLOCATIONS INTERACTION

A moving dislocation finds that its slip plane is penetrated by a forest of
intersecting dislocations.
Pinning force exerted
on dislocations by jogs

Eb

If a moving dislocation advances, it shears the

material above the slip plane relative to that
below, and that creates a little step a jog in
each forest dislocation.

Pinning force
on a moving 16
dislocation

STRENGTHENING BY GRAIN SIZE REDUCTION

Severe plastic deformation
1. Materials are subjected to the imposition of very
large strains without the introduction of
concomitant
changes
in
cross-sectional
dimensions of the samples.
2. Materials produced by SPD techniques have
grain sizes in the range of 501000 nm.
Now there are several SPD processing available:
equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP),
high-pressure torsion,
accumulative roll-bonding,
repetitive corrugation
and friction stir processing.

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SEVERE PLASTIC DEFORMATION: ECAP

Sketch of an ECAP tool and

materials deformation

Schematic model of dislocation structure evolution at different stages during

severe plastic deformation (adapted from R.Z. Valiev, R.K. Islamgaliev, I. Alexandrov.
Bulk nanostructured materials from severe plastic deformation, Progress in Mat. Sci.,
2000, v. 45, 103189)

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SEVERE PLASTIC DEFORMATION: TORSION

During torsion straining at room temperature,

high pressure can provide a rather high density
that may be close to 100% in the processed disk
sample.

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FORMING OPERATIONS

Cold working produces an increase in strength with the

attendant decrease in ductility, since the metal strain hardens.21

FORMED PARTS IN A TYPICAL AUTOMOBILE

Workability (and formability) shows max amount of deformation22

a material can withstand without fracture in forming process.

FORGING
Forging denotes a family of metalworking
processes in which deformation of workpiece is
carried out by compressive forces applied
through a set dies.

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Forging process can be carried out at room and elevated T.

ROLLING
Rolling, the most widely used deformation process, consists of
passing a piece of metal between two rolls; a reduction in thickness
results from compressive stresses exerted by the rolls.

Cold rolling may be used in the production of sheet, strip, and foil with
high quality surface finish.
Circular shapes as well as I-beams and railroad rails are fabricated using24
grooved rolls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6iODHla6qY&feature=related

ROLLING MILL CONFIGURATIONS

Four-high mill

Cluster mill

Two-high mill

Problem. A sheet of alloy is cold-rolled 20 % to a thickness of

3.00 mm. The sheet is then further cold rolled to 2.00 mm.
What is the total % cold work?
From Industrial Materials I, Colling et al.

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DRAWING
Drawing is the pulling of a metal piece through a die having a
tapered bore by means of a tensile force that is applied on the
exit side.

A reduction in cross section

results
in a corresponding
increase in length.
The total drawing operation may consist of a number of dies in a series
sequence. Rod, wire, and tubing products are commonly fabricated in
this way.
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Problem: Calculate the percent cold reduction when annealed copper

wire is cold drawn from a diameter of 1.27 mm to a diameter of 0.813 mm.

THE WIRE-DRAWING PROCESS.

Strain hardening is the

phenomenon whereby a ductile metal
becomes harder and stronger as it is
plastically deformed.

Problem. Design a process to

produce 0.5 cm diameter copper
wire.
The starting diameter of the
copper wires available in the stock
is 1 cm; 0.92 cm and 0.75 cm.

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WORK HARDENING AND PROPERTIES

The increase in
yield strength

The increase in
tensile strength

The decrease in
ductility

n is called the strain hardening exponent,

which is a measure of the ability of a metal to
strain harden; the larger its magnitude, the
greater the strain hardening for a given amount of
plastic strain.

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ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS TO

STRENGTHENING A METALLIC MATERIAL BY COLD
WORKING
We can simultaneously strengthen the metallic material and
produce the desired final shape.
We can obtain excellent dimensional tolerances and surface
finishes by the cold working process.
The cold-working process is an inexpensive method for producing
large numbers of small parts, since high forces and expensive
forming equipment are not needed.
Also, no alloying elements are needed, which means lower-cost
raw materials can be used.
(-) Some metals, such as HCP magnesium, have a limited number
of slip systems and are rather brittle at room temperature; thus,
only a small degree of cold working can be accomplished.
(-) Ductility, electrical conductivity, and corrosion resistance are
impaired by cold working.
(-) Since the effect of cold working is decreased or eliminated at
higher temperatures, we cannot use cold working as a
strengthening mechanism for components that will be subjected to 29
high temperatures during application or service.

EXTRUSION PROCESSES
A process of squeezing material through an
opening to produce a long length with
a uniform cross-section

(a) direct
extrusion,
(b) indirect
extrusion,
(c) hydrostatic
extrusion,
(d) pierce and
extrude
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(From Industrial Materials I, Colling et al.).

METAL EXTRUSION
Working metal is considerably
more complex than squeezing
toothpaste, but the principles
are the same.

A billet of material is placed in a cavity with a die at one end.

The die has an opening cut into it in the shape of the profile that's to be
extruded.
If the objective is to extrude a length of "U" shaped channel, then the die
will have an opening in the shape of the "U".
At the opposite end of the cavity a ram squeezes the metal, pushing it
through the die.

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SHEET METALWORKING

drawing

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shearing

WORK HARDENING (COLD WORKING) - SUMMARY

Cold Working - deforming of a
metal at low temperatures and
strengthening by dislocation
formation.
The strengthening of a
metal during deformation
is a result of the increase
in dislocations density.
Dislocations formed during cold working
strengthen a metal by storing some of
the energy applied, in the form of
residual stress.

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COLD WORKING AND ANNEALING

Since cold working or strain hardening results from
increased dislocation density we can assume that any
treatment to rearrange or annihilate dislocations would
begin to undo the effects of cold working.
Annealing is a heat treatment
used to eliminate some or all of the
effects of cold working.
After annealing, additional cold work
could be done, since the ductility is restored;
by combining repeated cycles of cold
working and annealing, large total deformations
may be achieved.

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MAKING STRONGER
As the percent of Cold
Working increases:

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