MATE1000 Lecture 12 Strengthening Mechanisms in Metals

(Callister Chapter 7, pages 166-172: Chapter 11, pages 341-346)

The strength of a metal can be determined from the nature of the interatomic bonds holding the
atoms together in the solid. Depending on the assumptions made, the estimates of the tensile
strength of a perfect metal are between E/10 and E/20. Unfortunately, the actual strength of
metals and alloys is much less than this often as low as E/10,000. The reason for this
discrepancy is that real metals and alloys are not perfect and invariably contain dislocations
line defects that are very easy to move and produce deformation in the metal. Since it is
very difficult to produce real materials that do not contain dislocations, the only realistic
method for increasing the strength of metals and alloys is to prevent dislocations from
moving. The four main strengthening mechanisms in metals are based on this principle of
impeding dislocation motion by one form of obstacle or another.

The Characteristics of Dislocations

Dislocations are line imperfections in an otherwise perfect crystal. Each dislocation is
associated with a displacement, known as its Burgers vector (b). The Burgers vector of a
dislocation is normally an atomic diameter. When a dislocation moves it results in the
displacement of one block of the crystal relative to another by an amount equal to the Burgers
vector.
Because a dislocation is an imperfection, it causes a local distortion of the crystal and this
distorted region has a higher energy than the surrounding perfect material. So a line
imperfection, such as a dislocation, can be regarded as linear region of higher energy. To keep
this energy to a minimum the dislocation wants to be as short as possible ie. to be straight
and not curved. This means that a dislocation behaves like an elastic string with a line tension
(T) the one dimensional equivalent of surface tension and the dislocation will resist being
made to adopt a curved shape. An approximate value of the line tension is b2/2 per unit
length of dislocation, where is the shear modulus of the material and b is the Burgers vector
of the dislocation.
The force (F) exerted on a dislocation line of length L by an applied stress is bL.
The dislocation density () of a material is the total length of all the dislocation lines per
unit volume of material units m/m3 or m-2. Typical dislocation densities for real materials
are in the range 1012 to 1014 m-2. This means that a cube of material 10mm in size (about the
size of a sugar cube) will contain between 1,000 and 100,000 kilometres of dislocation line.

Grain Size Hardening

Polycrystalline materials are stronger than
single crystals because of the difficulty of
transmitting slip (ie deformation) from one
grain to another. The slip planes and
directions in the deforming grain will almost
certainly not line up with those in the
adjacent, undeformed grain. Hence an
additional stress will be necessary to
overcome the grain boundary barrier.

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This stress will increase as the grain size decreases ie. as there are more grain boundaries
for the dislocations to cross.
Grain size hardening (strengthening) depends on the reciprocal of the square root of the
grain diameter (d) the Hall/Petch equation:

k
Grain size hardening = GS = A 0 =
d

Strengthening by Discrete Obstacles

Grain size hardening resulted from having two-dimensional barriers to dislocation movement
(the grain boundaries). The other forms of strengthening (hardening) are based on the use of
discrete obstacles as a means of impeding the movement of dislocations. These discrete
obstacles may be other dislocations, solute atoms or precipitate particles. The general principle
is the same. If the obstacles are spaced apart by a distance L on the slip plane - the plane on
which the dislocation moves and the dislocation of Burgers vector b is subjected to an
applied stress , then the force acting on a segment of dislocation between two obstacles is
bL.
As the dislocation is
forced up against a row
of obstacles, it will bow
out between the obstacles
under the action of the
stress. How far it bows
depends on the strength
of the obstacles FOBST,
and a balance will be
reached when this is
equal to the component
of the line tension T
(b2/2) acting in the
direction of the stress
see (b) at right.
If the dislocation bows out by an angle , some simple algebra shows that FOBST = b2sin,
and since FOBST = bL, the strengthening produced by these obstacles is given by:

b sin
Obstacle strengthening = =
L
Note that, if the applied stress exceeds bsin/L, the obstacles will be cut or sheared. The
strength of the obstacles is reflected in the value of . Provided is less than 90 the obstacles
can be cut. When = 90, the obstacles become impenetrable and the hardening process
changes see Dispersion Hardening on page 4. The condition for impenetrable particles (the
Orowan condition) occurs when FOBST 2T (ie. FOBST b2).

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Work Hardening
In work hardening, the obstacles to
dislocation movement are other
dislocations. The total number of
dislocations in the material increases with
plastic deformation (via dislocation
multiplication), the possibility of
dislocations interfering with each other
rises and the strength of the material
increases.
Work hardening can be regarded as the
additional stress necessary to make a
moving dislocation cut through a
forest of other dislocations that
intersect the slip plane.
The spacing of the dislocation trees in the forest is inversely proportional to , where is
the dislocation density (m-2). Hence the equation for work hardening is:

Work hardening = WH = A 0 = b
where is the shear modulus of the material, is the dislocation density and is a constant
determined by the force necessary for one dislocation to cut another ( 1)

Solid Solution Hardening

If solute atoms are present in the material added accidentally (impurities) or on purpose and
these foreign atoms do not fit exactly into the solvent crystal, they will act as obstacles to
dislocation movement and increase the strength of the material.
The strengthening resulting from solute atoms in solid solution depends on the mismatch
between the solute and solvent atoms. This mismatch the strain (M) caused by the solute
atom makes it more difficult for dislocations to move past solute atoms. Hence, the solute
atoms generate an FOBST that increases with the degree of mismatch M - ie FOBST = f(M).
The spacing L between the solute atoms can be shown to be inversely proportional to the
solute concentration C (in atom %) ie 1/L C. Hence the equation for solid solution
hardening is given by:

Solid solution hardening = SS = A 0 = f ( M ) C

where is a constant and f(M) is an expression that depends on the extent and type of the
mismatch (M) between solute and solvent.
Solid solution hardening is normally limited, because when the mismatch (M) is high the
solubility is low and vice versa. The only way to get large solid solution hardening is find a
way to trap a solute with a large mismatch inside a material at a concentration much higher
than normal. This is what happens when steel is quenched to form martensite and the carbon
in the steel gets trapped inside the bcc iron phase that is formed on cooling.

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Precipitation Hardening
In this type of hardening, particles of a second phase are made to precipitate in a matrix
and provide a series of obstacles to dislocation movement, such as those shown in the diagram
on page 2. The extent of the hardening is a combination of the size (S), spacing (L) and
volume fraction (Vf) of the second phase precipitates.
For a constant volume fraction of spherical particles, L S, and the hardening = FOBST/bL.
Hence, precipitation hardening should depend on the size of the precipitates and the way in
which FOBST varies with size. Precipitation hardening can therefore be represented as:

(
Pr ecipitation hardening = P = A 0 = f V f , S , FOBST )
There are a number of sources of FOBST for example, the elastic strains between the particles
and the matrix (coherency strains), the energy required to create additional interface when the
particle is sheared and differences in the elastic moduli of the precipitates and the surrounding
matrix. In all these cases FOBST is likely to increase with precipitate size, so that as the
precipitate grows the strength of the material should increase.

Dispersion Hardening
The most important feature to note about precipitation hardening is that the particles are
always cut or sheared by the moving dislocations. If the particles are so strong (FOBST so
large that the cutting angle = 90), then the particles act as impenetrable obstacles, the
interaction of the dislocations and the particles changes and the process is known as dispersion
hardening or Orowan hardening. This hardening, which is given by = b/L, represents the
upper limit of the hardening that can result from precipitate particles.
In this situation, the moving
dislocation wraps around the
particles (see (b) at right) until
the two sides of the bowed out
loops meet each other (see (c)
at right). These two segments
of dislocation annihilate each
other and pinch off at the
points where they meet. This
leaves loops of dislocation
(Orowan loops) around the
hard, impenetrable particles
and a dislocation line with a
series of cusps.
The line tension forces this curved dislocation to straighten out (see (d) above). As it is now
free of the precipitate obstacles, the dislocation can continue moving in the slip plane until it
encounters some more precipitates and repeats the process. In its simplest form, dispersion or
Orowan hardening is given by:
b
Dispersion hardening = D = A 0 =
L
where is the shear modulus, L is the particle spacing and the line tension T = b2/2.