Acta mater. Vol. 46, No. 5, pp.

1827±1836, 1998
Acta Metallurgica Inc.
Published by Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain
PII: S1359-6454(97)00365-0 1359-6454/98 $19.00 + 0.00

MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS OF

POLYCRYSTALS AND SINGLE CRYSTALS
N. HANSEN and X. HUANG
Materials Research Department, Risù National Laboratory, DK-4000, Roskilde, Denmark

(Received 12 May 1997)

AbstractÐThe relation between polycrystal deformation and single crystal deformation has been studied in
this work. A pure aluminium polycrystal having an average grain size of 300 mm has been strained in ten-
sion at room temperature. The ¯ow stress has been determined at four di€erent strains (0.05, 0.14, 0.22
and 0.34) and deformation microstructures have been characterized qualitatively and quantitatively by
transmission electron microscopy. Improved experimental techniques have allowed large foil areas to be
characterized and in total 89 grains have been examined. At the four strains examined a classi®cation of
the deformation microstructures into three di€erent types has shown a correlation between the grain orien-
tation and the type of deformation microstructure which develops during straining. The dislocation density
has been calculated at each strain and by assuming that the shear stress is proportional to the square root
of the dislocation density the shear stress±strain relationship has been derived for each of the three groups
of grains showing di€erent deformation microstructures. The stress±strain curves show a strain hardening
behaviour which depends on the orientation of the grain. The behaviour of the grains embedded in the
polycrystal is compared with the behaviour of single crystals and the stress±strain curve of the polycrystal
is estimated with good accuracy from single crystal data, which are weighted based on a quantitative tex-
ture analysis of the polycrystal. # 1998 Acta Metallurgica Inc.

1. INTRODUCTION embedded in a polycrystal information can be

Based on classical papers, e.g. by Sachs [1], obtained about the slip pattern of individual grains.
Taylor [2] and Kocks [3, 4] the relationship between It has also been possible to estimate the dislocation
polycrystal deformation and single crystal defor- density of the grains allowing a calculation of the
mation has been studied extensively over many shear stress taken to be proportional to the square
root of the dislocation density. This experimental
years [5±9]. The general problem when comparing
approach can therefore give information both about
polycrystals and single crystals is that the slip pat-
the slip pattern and the ¯ow stress of the grains
tern of grains embedded in a polycrystal is a€ected
embedded in a polycrystal allowing a comparison
by grain interaction which is absent when single
with single crystal behaviour. In applying this ex-
crystals are tested. This problem has been addressed
perimental approach it cannot be excluded that
by Kocks who suggested basing comparisons on
local grain interaction e€ects in the polycrystal may
single crystals deforming in multislip [4]. Thereby
reduce the e€ect of grain orientation e€ects making
the slip pattern in the single crystal might simulate
such a comparison dicult. To minimize such an
the slip pattern of the polycrystal where strain ac-
e€ect and at the same time ensure that polycrystal
commodation between grains requires several slip
behaviour is studied, aluminium having a fairly
systems to operate, e.g. at least ®ve as suggested in
large grain size has been chosen. Aluminium being
the Taylor model [2, 5]. In tension such multislip
a f.c.c. metal with a high stacking fault energy is
may be activated in free single crystals having their
considered suitable as the many slip systems active,
tensile axes in the h100i and h111i directions, [3].
reduce the e€ect of grain size on the slip pattern
The shear stress±strain relationship for these two
and on the ¯ow stress [10].
crystal orientations di€ers signi®cantly and it was
evident that the best simulation of polycrystal beha-
viour was obtained by choosing the crystal of [111]
2. EXPERIMENTAL
orientation. A larger strain hardening rate and a
higher level of shear stress compared to the beha- Pure aluminium (99.996%) specimens having a
viour of a real polycrystal showed, however, that a grain size of approximately 300 mm have been pro-
de®nitive answer to the problem of comparing poly- duced by cold rolling and recrystallization.
crystal deformation and single crystal deformation Specimens of square cross section 48 mm2 and
was not reached [4, 6]. with gauge length 20 mm have been strained in ten-
A di€erent approach has been tried in this work. sion in an Instron testing machine to true strains of
By careful, microstructural analysis of the grains 0.05, 0.14, 0.22 and 0.34 (engineering strains of 5,
1827
1828 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS
15, 25 and 40%). The strain rate used was
8.3  10ÿ4 sÿ1. To ensure that the stress±strain beha-
viour is representative for true polycrystalline beha-
viour the stress±strain curve has been compared
with previous data obtained from specimens having
a larger ratio between the specimen cross section
and the grain size [10]. Very good agreement has
been found both in shape and level of the stress±
strain curves indicating that an e€ect of surface
grains is negligible in the present specimens. For
transmission electron microscopy (TEM) obser-
vations, thin foils have been cut from the two side
planes of the tensile specimens and subsequently
thinned and electropolished using standard
methods. In this preparation, care has been exerted
in obtaining foils from the interior of the specimens
to reduce possible surface e€ects. On each foil the
tensile axis has been marked allowing the orien-
tation of crystallites to be determined with respect
to this axis. In order to obtain accurate structural
parameters large areas have been examined of the
order of 2000±6000 mm2 of each grain. In total 89
grains have been examined at the four strains.
Local orientation measurements of crystallites
within grains have been made using a semiauto-
matic Kikuchi line technique in the areas where the
montages of the microstructure are taken [11].
Linear and area scanning have been used when
measuring the orientation of the crystallites allow-
ing the orientation measurement to be related to
the microstructural observations. One such relation-
ship concerns the crystallographic characteristic of
the boundaries in which the dislocations have accu-
mulated, i.e. a dislocation boundary should be
classi®ed as either a crystallographic or a non-crys-
tallographic boundary [12]. A boundary in the ®rst
category is taken to be parallel to within 58 with a
slip plane, whereas boundaries in the second cat-
egory make a larger angle with a slip plane. A pre-
liminary classi®cation is based on measurements of
the angle between the dislocation boundary and the
trace of the slip plane in the ®eld of observations.
The analysis was then re®ned by tilting the foil to
achieve the minimum image width for the dislo-
cation boundaries. The inclination of this boundary
plane to the nearest slip plane was then determined
and if the inclination was determined to be less
than 58 than the boundary was con®rmed as of
crystallographic type.
The orientation measurements are used to calcu-
late the mean misorientation angle (ym) across the
dislocation boundaries. Also the spacing between
the boundaries (Dr) is determined by counting the
number of intersections between the boundaries and
a random set of test lines [13]. From the two
parameters ym and Dr the volume density of dislo-
cations in boundaries (rb) can be obtained from the
equation:
rb ˆ Sv rA …1†
where Sv is the dislocation boundary area per unit
volume and rA is the dislocation density per unit
area of boundary [14]. Sv does not depend on the
spatial arrangement of the boundaries and equals
2/Dr [13]. rA equals 1/h for a simple tilt wall where
h is the spacing between the dislocations and for a
twist wall rA=2/h [15]. For small angles of misor-
ientation h 2 b/ym and by averaging over tilt and
twist boundaries rA is approximated by 1.5 ym/b.
The dislocation density in the boundaries is then:
rb ˆ 3ym =Dr
b …2†
Besides the dislocations present in dislocation
boundaries, dislocations are also found in the
volumes between the boundaries. The density of
these dislocations (ro) has been determined from
TEM micrographs by counting the number of inter-
sections between dislocations and a set of random
test lines (PL). The dislocation density is then
ro ˆ 2PL =t …3†
where t is the foil thickness [13]. This parameter has
been determined from intensity oscillations in con-
vergent beam di€raction patterns. In general, the
determination of ro is not very accurate but as ro is
only a rather small fraction of the total dislocation
density, the accuracy of measuring the dislocation
density is predominantly determined by the pre-
cision in measuring ym and Dr.
The texture of the tensile specimens in the unde-
formed state and after straining has been deter-
mined by neutron di€raction [16]. For each sample
three complete pole ®gures have been measured and
the three-dimensional crystallite orientation distri-
bution function (ODF) has been calculated using
the series expansion method [17]. Table 1 shows the
volume fractions for the [100], [111] and [110] orien-
tations which have been determined by integrating
the density over an angle of 158 around the ideal
position of the component in the stereographic tri-
angle. Table 1 shows that the texture changes are
not very pronounced over the strain range investi-
gated. There is a tendency that the [111] component
strengthens and that the [110] component weakens.
This corresponds well to predictions by the Taylor
model [2, 5] that unstable crystal orientations rotate
towards either [100] or [111] directions for straining
in tension.
Table 1. Volume fractions of texture components
h100i h111i h110i
Strain 0±158 0±158 0±158
0 0.280 0.132 0.100
0.05 0.240 0.109 0.106
0.14 0.282 0.236 0.048
0.22 0.256 0.284 0.023
0.34 0.277 0.226 0.033
 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS 1829

Fig. 2. Type 2 microstructure. TEM micrograph at a

strain of 0.14. The structure is typically subdivided by
ordinary cell boundaries having no crystallographic or
macroscopic orientation.

Next it has been found [12] that the microstructure

of a grain relates to the orientation of the tensile
axis of that grain. This is illustrated in Fig. 4,
Fig. 1. Type 1 microstructure. TEM micrograph at a
where the average orientation of the tensile axis of
strain of 0.14. The microstructure is subdivided by the 89 grains is plotted in an inverse pole ®gure. In
extended straight dense dislocation walls and microbands this ®gure the microstructural di€erences are intro-
into cell blocks which contain ordinary dislocation cells. duced by using di€erent symbols for the three types
The extended boundaries have been termed crystallo- of microstructures. Figure 4 shows that Type 1 and
graphic boundaries (see text). The tensile axis is marked
TA in this side plane view. Type 2 structures are only observed within rela-
tively small regions of the standard triangle, in an
area near the boundary line between [100] and [111]
3. RESULTS and near [100], respectively. By contrast, Type 3
structures have been observed for many di€erent
3.1. Microstructure
The microstructural observations show that the
deformation microstructure of the individual grains
is fairly homogeneous, but that signi®cant grain-to-
grain variations exist. It has been shown [12] that
these variations are not random allowing the
observed microstructures to be grouped into three
types as shown in Figs 1±3. The characteristics of
these structures are:
. Type 1: The microstructure is subdivided by
extended, crystallographic dislocation boundaries
de®ning cell blocks which contain ordinary dislo-
cation cells.
. Type 2{: The microstructure is subdivided by
ordinary dislocation boundaries de®ning a three-
dimensional cell structure.
. Type 3{: The microstructure is subdivided as for
Type 1, but with extended non-crystallographic
boundaries.
Fig. 3. Type 3 microstructure. TEM micrograph at a
{Note that Type 2 and Type 3 in [12] were called Type strain of 0.14. The microstructure is as for Type 1 subdi-
3 and Type 2, respectively. vided into cell blocks by dense dislocation walls and
{Note that Type 2 and Type 3 in [12] were called Type 3 microbands. The extended boundaries have been termed
and Type 2, respectively. non-crystallographic boundaries. (See text.)
1830 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS
Fig. 4. Inverse pole ®gure showing the tensile axis orien-
tation of 89 grains embedded in polycrystalline specimens
strained in the range 0.05±0.34. R Grains with crystallo-
graphic dislocation boundaries (Type 1 microstructure). q
Grains containing equiaxed cells (Type 2 microstructure).
q Grains with non-crystallographic dislocation boundaries
(Type 3 microstructure). From Ref. [12].
grain orientations. It has also been observed at all
four strains, that the orientations of grains are not
randomly distributed across the triangle. The con-
centration of orientations is largest near the bound-
ary line between [100] and [111]. This concentration
re¯ects the starting texture as well as the textural
evolution taking place during tensile straining.
Fig. 5. Inverse pole ®gure as in Fig. 4, but subdivided into ®ve regions (see text).
3.2. Volume concentration and grain orientation
The di€erent microstructures observed for the
three groups of grains make it relevant to estimate
the volume concentration of these groups. From
this it will be possible to estimate the individual
contributions of the groups to the behaviour of the
bulk polycrystal. The determination of these volume
concentrations has been based on a discretization of
the ODFs (see Section 2) into about 6000 orien-
tations which are introduced into an inverse pole
®gure. The next step of the calculation has been
based on the overlap observed (see Fig. 5) between
the groups of grains showing di€erent microstruc-
tures and the regions marked by dashed boundaries,
which subdivide the standard triangle. These
regions originate from theoretical calcula-
tions [2, 5, 18] based on the Taylor model and the
®ve regions in Fig. 5 are each characterized by a
speci®c set of possible slip systems. From Fig. 5 the
following qualitative correspondence between
groups of grains and regions is obtained:
(i) Grains showing Type 1 microstructure have
orientations concentrated in the lower half of
region 2 with M-factors less than 3.0.
(ii) Grains showing Type 2 microstructure are con-
centrated in Region 1 and in the left part of
Region 3 with M-factors less than 2.5.
(iii) Grains showing Type 3 microstructure are dis-
tributed over the remaining area of the tri-
angle.
Based on this observation the volume concentration
and the average M-factors for the three groups of
 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS 1831

Table 2. Volume fractions ( f ) and average M-factors for three groups of grains showing di€erent types of deformation microstructure
Type 1 Type 2 Type 3
Strain f1 M1 f2 M2 f3 M3

0 0.19 2.75 0.28 2.40 0.53 3.23

0.05 0.17 2.75 0.24 2.40 0.59 3.21
0.14 0.18 2.76 0.27 2.40 0.55 3.30
0.22 0.19 2.75 0.24 2.39 0.57 3.30
0.34 0.22 2.76 0.27 2.39 0.51 3.28
With reference to Fig. 5: Type 1. Region 2 for M < 3.0; Type 2. Region 1 + Region 3 M < 2.5; Type 3. Region 4 + Region 5 + Region
2 (M e 3.0) + Region 3 (M e 2.5).

grains have been calculated, see Table 2. In this cal-
culation it has been assumed that the texture of the
specimens shows rotational symmetry. This intro-
duces a discrepancy when comparing with calcu-
lations where the full ODF information is used. A
comparison shows that this discrepancy is small
about 3%, and it has therefore been neglected.
Table 2 shows that neither the volume fraction nor
the M-values are much a€ected by the tensile strain.
However, this does not mean that grain rotations
have not taken place during straining. This is illus-
trated in Fig. 6 showing the volume concentrations
of grains in the ®ve regions in Fig. 5. Figure 6
clearly shows that the concentration of grains near
the boundary line between [100] and [111] increases
with strain in accordance with model predictions
(see Section 2). Also to be noted in Fig. 6 is that
the largest changes appear to be rotations from
region 5 to region 4, i.e. the grains rotate through
orientations, all representing the group of grains
developing the Type 3 microstructure.
3.3. Dislocation density and ¯ow stress
For each of the three groups of grains the dislo-
cation density (rb+ro) has been determined as a
function of strain, see Fig. 7. It is estimated that
the densities given are determined with an accuracy
of about 10% and it should be noted that rb only
accounts for the geometrically necessary dislo-
cations. Figure 7 shows that the dislocation density
of grains with Type 3 structures is signi®cantly lar-
ger than that of grains with Type 1 and Type 2
structures. Also note the small increase for strains
above 0.2 in the dislocation density of grains with
Type 2 structures, i.e. grains with orientations near
the h100i corner position in Fig. 4. From the dislo-
cation density and the volume fraction (Table 2) of
the three groups of grains, the total dislocation den-
sity (rt) of the specimen can be calculated. rt is
given in Table 3 together with the measured tensile
¯ow stress.
The ¯ow stress in terms of the resolved shear
stress (t) has been estimated for the three types of
structures based on the empirical relation by taking
the friction stress to, equal to zero and applying
p
t ˆ abG ro ‡ rb …4†
where b is Burgers vector (b = 0.286  10ÿ9 m), G is
the shear modulus (G = 26,000 MPa), and a is a
number of the order of 0.2±0.35 [19, 20]. The val-
idity of equation (4) has been shown in many stu-
dies and apart from a variation in a, equation (4) is
quite insensitive to changes in materials and process
parameters. In order to derive an estimate of a in
the present experiment, equation (4) has been used
to calculate the ¯ow stress (s) of the polycrystalline
specimen taking s = Mt, thus
p
s ˆ MabG rt …5†
where M is the average Taylor factor which is cal-
culated to 2.94 from M-factors for three groups of
grains and for four strains (Table 2). The data in
Table 3 allows a calculation of a, which also is

Fig. 7. The calculated dislocation densities for groups of

Fig. 6. The volume fraction of grains having orientations grains having the three types of microstructure shown in
within the ®ve regions in Fig. 5. (See text.) Figs 1±3.
1832 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS
Table 3. Flow stress and dislocation density
Dislocation
Tensile Tensile ¯ow density
strain stress (MPa) 1013(mÿ2)
0.05 34.9 3.2
0.14 48.5 9.8
0.22 55.2 15.1
0.34 61.5 19.0
G = 26,000 MPa; b = 0.286  10ÿ9 m; M = 2.94.
given in Table 3. a is observed to decrease with
strain, but a reasonable approximation of the exper-
imental stress±strain curve can be obtained for the
average value of a equal to 0.24, which will be used
in the following. The good agreement between this
®gure and the a-values reported in the literature
(e.g. Refs [18] and [19]) gives good con®dence in the
applied method of determining the dislocation den-
sity. That the experimental a value of 0.24 is rela-
tively low compared to published values indicates
that the contribution to the total dislocation density
from geometrically necessary dislocations appar-
ently outweighs the contribution from redundant
dislocations in the boundaries.
The shear stress for the grains having the three
di€erent types of microstructure is plotted in Fig. 8
vs the shear strain. This strain has been estimated
by multiplying the tensile strain with an average
M factor for each of the three groups of grains
averaged over four strain values. These
factors are M1(av) = 2.76, M2(av) = 2.40 and
M3(av) = 3.26 (Table 2). Note in Fig. 8 that three
groups of grains having the three di€erent types of
microstructure show signi®cantly di€erent shear
stress±strain curves. Most marked is the typical
Stage ``III'' behaviour, i.e. parabolic hardening of
group 3 grains compared to the behaviour of group
2 grains where a rapid strain hardening at low
strain develops into a low hardening region at med-
ium to high strain. In Fig. 8 is also plotted the
Fig. 8. The shear stress±strain curves for groups of grains
having di€erent types of microstructure (see text) and for
the polycrystalline specimen.
nominal shear stress±strain behaviour for the poly-
crystal, using an M factor of 2.94 when transform-
ing from tensile stress/strain to shear stress/strain.
a
Here, the strain hardening behaviour of the poly-
0.28 crystal di€ers signi®cantly from the behaviour of
0.22 the three groups of grains which together comprises
0.21
0.20 the structure of the polycrystalline specimen.
4. DISCUSSION
This experiment shows for grains embedded in a
polycrystal a clear correlation between the crystallo-
graphic orientation, the deformation microstructure
and the estimated shear stress±strain behaviour.
This has also been observed for single crystals
deformed in tension where the microstructure [21±
27] and the shear stress±strain behaviour [3, 4, 28±
31] has been examined for di€erent crystal orien-
tations. A comparison between polycrystalline beha-
viour and single crystal behaviour will therefore be
carried out in the following based on (i) microstruc-
tural observations and (ii) estimates and measure-
ments of the stress±strain behaviour. This
comparison is followed by a discussion of polycrys-
tal deformation, especially the stress±strain curve of
the polycrystal.
4.1. Microstructure and slip pattern
Deformation microstructures have not been stu-
died to a great extent in aluminium single crystals
strained in tension. Copper crystals are, however,
expected to show a comparable behaviour and such
crystals have been studied in more detail [21±26]. A
general ®nding has been [21±24] that the defor-
mation structure of the [100] crystal is a character-
istic three-dimensional, uniform cell structure,
whereas a banded structure of dislocation bound-
aries is generally observed for other
orientations [24±26]. For such banded structures it
has been found that the deviations of the plane of
the dislocation boundary from the primary slip
plane increases with increasing multiplicity of slip.
An example of this e€ect is a deviation of 298
measured for the dislocation boundaries in a [111]
crystal, which has six slip systems [25]. These obser-
vations have been further examined by a Schmid
factor analysis [27], which shows that if two systems
on one or two planes have high Schmid factors the
crystals tend to form crystallographic dislocation
boundaries. However, if more than two slip planes
have high Schmid factors, the crystals tend to form
non-crystallographic boundaries [27].
For the present polycrystal, a Taylor analysis in
general agrees with a Schmid factor analysis for
single crystals as the group of grains developing
Type 1 structures predominantly slip on two planes,
whereas the group of grains developing Type 3
structures slip on three or more planes. For the
group of grains developing the Type 2 structure the
number of slip planes is four as in a [100] single
 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS
crystal strained in tension. Finally, note the large
spread of orientations which characterizes the
groups of grains, which develop the Type 3 struc-
ture. For many of these orientations, single glide
will dominate in a single crystal with the formation
of crystallographic dislocation boundaries as a
result [19, 21]. In contrast, grains embedded in a
polycrystal develop the Type 3 structure, i.e. non-
crystallographic dislocation boundaries are formed.
This di€erence shows that glide on a limited num-
ber of systems in a single crystal is replaced by mul-
tislip when a crystal of the same orientation is
embedded in a polycrystal.
In correlating the microstructure with the slip
pattern the coincidence should be further explored
between grain orientations grouped according to
microstructure and grain orientations grouped
according to speci®c slip system combinations (see
Fig. 5). The speci®c slip system combinations in
the ®ve regions of this ®gure are calculated on the
basis of the Taylor model [2, 5, 18], but other
models may divide the triangle in a di€erent way.
One goal for future research will therefore be to
establish correlations between the microstructural
evolution in tension and the active slip systems as
has recently been done for f.c.c. metals deformed
by rolling [32].
To conclude this section it must be pointed out
that grain rotations during deformation create a
general problem when microstructures of polycrys-
tals have to be correlated with orientations of the
individual grains. The reason is that an actual
microstructure may re¯ect the total deformation
history and that previous orientation changes are
unknown. For more detailed studies of correlations
between microstructure and crystallographic orien-
tations, studies of single crystals should therefore be
encouraged.
4.2. Stress±strain curves of single crystals and poly-
crystals
In contrast to the limited information on defor-
mation microstructures of aluminium single crys-
tals, the stress±strain behaviour has been studied
for many di€erent orientations [28±31]. Generally,
it has been found that crystals of the three corner
orientations of the stereographic triangle, have dis-
tinctly di€erent shear stress±strain behaviour. For
positions along the boundaries between the corners
a continued change in the stress±strain behaviour is
observed from one corner to the next and for crys-
tals having orientations within the triangle, an easy
glide stage is a characteristic feature. Figure 9
shows a characteristic shear stress±strain curve for
two corner positions [111] and [100] of the stereo-
graphic triangle, for one position on the boundary
between [100] and [111] and for two positions
within the triangle [29]. The selection of these orien-
tations by Lange and LuÈcke [29] shows that the
shear stress±strain behaviour of a single crystal is
1833
Fig. 9. The e€ect of the grain orientation on the nominal
shear stress±strain curves of single crystals of pure alu-
minium. The orientations of the crystals are shown on the
insert of the standard stereographic triangle. The data are
from Ref. [29].
strongly orientation dependent and that the shear
stress±strain behaviour can be divided into three
characteristic types. (i) Type 1 shows hardening in
three stages and a decreasing length of the easy
glide stage with a decreasing angle between the in-
itial orientation of the crystal and the boundary
between [100] and [111]. (ii) Type 2 shows a rapid
initial work hardening rate, which decreases to a
very low value at a shear strain of about 0.1. This
type is characteristic of crystals having orientations
in the [100] corner of the triangle. (iii) Type 3
shows parabolic stress±strain curves with a high
work hardening rate and a high ¯ow stress. This
type is characteristic for crystals having orientations
in the [111] corner of the triangle.
The shear stress±strain curves in Fig. 9 show a
clear resemblance to the shear±stress curves in Fig. 8
for the three groups of grains comprising the poly-
crystal. This resemblance of the behaviour of single
crystals and grains embedded in a polycrystal will
be discussed in the following text based on shear
stress±strain curves of single crystals represented in
the literature [28±31]. Here relatively good agree-
ment is found between di€erent investigations for
example by LuÈcke and Lange [28, 31],
Staubwasser [30] and Fortunier et al. [31]. In this
last paper the stress±strain behaviour has been fol-
lowed to relatively large strain values and thus this
work has been chosen as the basis for most of the
comparisons here polycrystal.
In Figs 10±12, the polycrystal shear stress±strain
curves are compared with single crystal curves of
speci®c orientations. (i) The group of grains show-
ing Type 1 microstructures and having orientations
at or near the boundary between [100] and [111]
(see Fig. 4) is compared in Fig. 10 with the beha-
viour of two crystals numbered 14 and 15 [30] at
the boundary between [100] and [111]. These crys-
tals show Type 1 behaviour according to [29],
1834 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS
Fig. 10. The nominal shear stress±strain curve for grains
having Type 1 microstructure compared with the stress±
strain curve for two crystals numbers 14 and 15 in Ref.
[30] having an orientation on the boundary between [100]
and [111] in the standard triangle [30].
which also characterizes the stress±strain behaviour
of the grains embedded in the polycrystal. (ii) The
group of grains showing Type 2 microstructures
and having orientations near the [100] corner is in
Fig. 11 compared with the behaviour of a [100]
crystal [31]. This crystal shows Type 2 behaviour
according to [29], which also characterizes the
stress±strain curves of the grains embedded in the
polycrystal. The higher ¯ow stress and the higher
strain hardening rates of the grains in the poly-
crystal may be related to the fact that the stress±
strain curve for the grains of the polycrystal aver-
age the behaviour of grains having a spread of
orientations around [100], whereas the single crys-
tal curve represents the behaviour of an ideal [100]
crystal. (iii) The group of grains showing Type 3
microstructures and having orientations over a
large part of the stereographic triangle, including
orientations near the [111] corner are compared in
Fig. 12 with the behaviour of a [111] crystal [31].
This crystal shows Type 3 behaviour according
to [29] which also characterizes the grain
embedded in the polycrystal.
Fig. 11. The nominal shear stress±strain curve for grains
having Type 2 microstructure compared with a stress±
strain curve for a [100] crystal from Ref. [31].
Fig. 12. The nominal shear stress±strain curve for grains
having Type 3 microstructure compared with the stress±
strain curves for a [111] crystals from Ref. [31].
4.3. Polycrystal deformation and polycrystal stress±
strain curve
The analysis of the orientation dependence of the
microstructural evolution and the shear stress±
strain behaviour shows a clear resemblance between
the behaviour of grains embedded in a polycrystal
and single crystals which deform by double slip and
multislip. However, for orientations within the stan-
dard triangle the behaviour of polycrystal grains
and single crystals di€ers. The typical single glide
behaviour is not observed in the polycrystal exper-
iment showing that an embedded grain has to
deform on more systems to maintain macroscopic
compatibility with its neighbours. Originally this led
Kocks to suggest [3, 4] that comparisons between
polycrystal and single crystal behaviour should be
based on single crystals deforming by multislip, i.e.
in tension in the [100] and [111] orientations. In
fact, it was found [4] that the polycrystal curve fell
between the [100] and [111] curves for both alu-
minium and iron.
The present experiments support the idea that the
multislip of a single crystal in the [111] orientation
is relevant to consider in comparisons of embedded
grains having a large orientation spread in the
stereographic triangle which further show a shear
stress±strain behaviour quite comparable to that of
the [111] crystal. Further the experiment has shown
that other slip patterns can ensure macroscopic
strain accommodations of the grains in the poly-
crystal. Fewer slip systems may suce, as in groups
of grains showing a Type 1 microstructure. This is
in general accord with observations of grain subdi-
vision during deformation which has led to the sug-
gestion that volume elements of a grain can deform
with fewer slip systems than the ®ve required in the
Taylor model to ensure strain compatibility. Each
volume element can therefore not ful®l this cri-
terion, but neighbouring elements may ful®l it
collectively [33]. Deviations from the Taylor model
may also have their cause in unpredicted slip and in
 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS 1835

Fig. 13. Tensile ¯ow stress±strain curves for single crystals of corner orientations ([100] and [111]) from
Ref. 31 and of an orientation crystals numbered 14 and 15 in Ref. [30] on the boundary between [100]
and [111]. (The latter curve has been obtained by transforming the shear stress±strain curve in Fig. 10
by the use of a Taylor-factor equal to 2.8.) The contributions of the three single crystals to the tensile
¯ow stress of a polycrystalline specimen have been weighted and added to give the curve marked
Polycryst. (calc.). On this ®gure is also shown the tensile stress±strain curve for the polycrystal tested in
this work, marked Polycryst. (exp.).

activation of extra slip systems near grain bound-
aries and triple junctions.
Based on the observed correlations between poly-
crystalline and single crystal behaviour the polycrys-
talline tensile stress±strain curve may be calculated
based on the stress±strain curves for single crystals,
see Fig. 13. This calculation of the stress±strain
curve of the polycrystal is based on the assumption
that the contribution for the three groups of grains
of the polycrystal can be added linearly after being
weighted based on the volume fractions given in
Table 2. It is further assumed as in the Taylor
model that the tensile strain is the same for the
embedded grains of the polycrystal as for the bulk
polycrystalline specimen.
The polycrystalline curve is calculated by using
the crystals numbered 14 and 15 in Ref. [30] and
the [100] curve to calculate the contributions of
grains of group 1 and group 2, respectively. No cor-
rection is made for the change in the Taylor M-fac-
tor as it is quite similar for the single crystals 2.8
and 2.45, respectively and for the groups of
embedded grains of the polycrystal 2.76 and 2.40,
respectively (from Table 4). For grains of group 3
the h111i curve is used, however, after an M-factor
correction due to the signi®cant di€erence in the
Table 4. M-factors
Type of grain M-factor
14, 15 crystals* 2.8 (estim.)
[100] crystal 2.45
[111] crystal 3.67
Group 1 grains 2.76 (aver.)
Group 2 grains 2.40 (aver.)
Group 3 grains 3.26 (aver.)
*See text and Ref. [30].
M-factor for an ideal h111i crystal which is 3.67
(18) and the average M-factor for group 3 grains
which is 3.26. The calculated curve is shown in
Fig. 13 together with the experimental stress±strain
curve for the polycrystalline specimens. Good agree-
ment is observed both when it comes to the shape
of the curve and the magnitude of the ¯ow stress,
although there is a certain overprediction of the
¯ow stress at large strain.
In the calculation of the polycrystalline curve in
Fig. 13 a contribution of grain boundary strength-
ening is not included. This contribution is, however,
not large, of the order of 3±4 MPa for the present
grain size [10].
In conclusion, it appears to be a crucial obser-
vation that the stress±strain behaviour of grains in
a polycrystal is orientation dependent and shows
many similarities with single crystals oriented for
double slip and multislip. To explore the relation-
ship between polycrystals and single crystals, the
behaviour of grains embedded in a polycrystal must
be studied further and also as a function of the
grain size. Such investigations can be greatly facili-
tated, if the grains in the polycrystal can be classi-
®ed into groups showing a similar microstructural
and mechanical behaviour. A microstructural analy-
sis can be used in these studies, but a faster tech-
nique is desirable. One such technique is high-
energy X-ray di€raction, where the behaviour of in-
dividual grains embedded in a polycrystal can be
studied both during and after deformation [34]. Of
special interest will be the combined observations of
microstructural and crystallographic changes during
in situ deformation of embedded grains in poly-
1836 HANSEN and HUANG et al.: MICROSTRUCTURE AND FLOW STRESS
crystals which may then be compared with the
behaviour of single crystals.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Pure aluminium polycrystals have been strained
in tension at room temperature and based on a
microstructural analysis the following conclusions
have been reached:
. Three groups of grains have been identi®ed show-
ing di€erent types of deformation microstructures
and a correlation has been observed between
microstructure and grain orientation. The dislo-
cation density has been estimated for the three
groups of grains and the shear stress±strain re-
lationship has been obtained by taking the shear
stress proportional to the square root of the dis-
location density. Each of the three groups of
grains shows a characteristic shear stress±strain
relationship.
. The deformation behaviour of single crystals and
grains embedded in a polycrystal has been corre-
lated by taking into account the di€erence in the
slip pattern between a single crystal and an
embedded grain in a polycrystal. The correlations
obtained have allowed the tensile stress±strain
curve for the polycrystalline specimen to be calcu-
lated with good accuracy from single crystal data
which are weighted based on a quantitative tex-
tural analysis of the polycrystal.
AcknowledgementsÐWe thank Drs B. Bay, J. B. Bilde-
Sùrensen, D. A. Hughes, D. Juul Jensen, Q. Liu, Y. L.
Liu, and T. Le€ers for many fruitful discussions. J.
Lindbo is gratefully acknowledged for his very skilled
preparation of the TEM foils. Finally, we thank T. Skov
for drawing the ®gures and E. Sùrensen for typing the
manuscript. The present work is performed under the
Danish Materials Technology Programme ®nanced by the
Danish Agency for Development of Trade and Industry,
The Danish Natural Science Research Council and the
Danish Technical Research Council.
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