Strengthening in Metals
Strengthening Mechanisms for Metals
• For a metal to plastically deform: dislocations must move
• Strength and hardness: related to mobility of dislocations
- Reduce dislocation mobility: metal
strengthens/hardens
- Greater forces necessary to cause dislocation motion
- Increase dislocation mobility: metal becomes
weaker/softer
• Mechanisms
- Solid solution strengthening (atomic-sized obstacles)
- Precipitate hardening (multi-atom particles)
- Work hardening (intersecting dislocations)
- Grain size reduction
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Solid-solution strengthening (atomic-sized obstacles)
• Adding point defects by alloying.
• Mixing two or more elements together.
• Dissolving atoms of different size into a crystal is a way of
adding point defects to the crystal.
• These point defects make it harder for dislocations to move
through the material.
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r
r’<<r r’>>r
Interstitial atom substitutional atom
(i.e. add C to iron →low C steel) (i.e. add Zn to Cu → Brass)
The amount of alloy atoms added is given in either:
- weight percent (wt%) or
- atomic percent (at%)
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Example of calculating alloy concentration:
Given: 70 g. Cu mixed with 30 g. Zn
Find: the weight% and atomic% of Cu and Zn
(ACu = 63.55 g/mole, AZn = 65.39 g/mole)
Solution:
Total weight of the alloy = 70 + 30 = 100g
Wt% Cu = (70/100)x100 = 70%
Wt% Zn = (30/100)x100 = 30%
Total # moles Cu = 70 g / (63.55 g/mole) = 1.10 moles
Total # moles Zn = 30 g / (65.39 g/mole) = 0.49 moles
Total # moles = 1.10 + 0.49 = 1.59
At% Cu = (1.10/1.59)x100 = 69%
At% Zn = (0.49/1.59)x100 = 31%
The difference between Wt% and At% would be much greater if the
atomic mass difference between the elements were bigger.
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Typical composition of an “Alloyed” steel.
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Solid-solution strengthening (atomic-sized obstacles)
• The concentration of solute is, on average:
1
𝜏𝑠𝑠 = α𝐸𝑐2
• The shear strength increases with the square root of the solute
concentration
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Dispersion and Precipitation Strengthening
(multi-atom particles)
• A more effective method of strengthening is to disperse small,
strong particles in the metal
• The dislocation line is forced to bow between the particles,
increasing line length and, therefore, increasing the work
required. 𝑏: is the size of Burgers vector.
𝐸𝑏
𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 −𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 = 𝐸: Elastic modulus
𝐿 𝐿 : distance between precipitates.
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Alloy elements are also added to make “big” precipitates.
(precipitation strengthening)
• Here you cannot see • Enough alloying element to
the alloying elements. exceed solubility limit
They are dissolved. (example: sugar and hot
water).
• Big precipitates of Fe3C
(cementite) particles which are
dark. 9
Work hardening (intersecting dislocations)
• During plastic deformation number of dislocation increases.
• As the number of dislocations increases, they interact, and it becomes
more difficult for dislocations to move.
𝐸𝑏 𝐸: Elastic modulus
𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘−ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 = 𝜌 𝑏: the size of burger vector
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𝜌: dislocation density
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Grain Boundary Hardening
• A moving dislocation in one grain is forced to change direction and cross
a region of loosely packed atoms.
• The strengthening effect scales with the inverse square root of the grain
diameter:
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Hall-Petch Effects (Reduce Grain Size)
• One method of controlling the properties of a material is by controlling the
grain size.
• By reducing the grain size, the number of grains increases, so as
grain boundary area.
• In smaller grains, dislocations moves a shorter distance before
encountering a grain boundary.
• Hence, strength of metallic materials can be increased by reducing grain
size. This is called Hall-Petch effects.
• The Hall-Petch equation relates the grain size to the yield strength:
𝜎𝑦 = 𝜎0 + 𝑘 × 𝑑 𝑛 Where “n” has been measured to be − 12
where 𝜎𝑦 is the yield strength
𝑑 is the average diameter of the
grains
𝜎0 and 𝑘 are constants for the metal.
𝑘
𝜎𝑦 = 𝜎0 +
𝑑 12
Example:
The yield strength of mild steel with an average grain size of 0.05 mm is
137.9 MPa. The yield stress of the same steel with a grain size of 0.007
mm is 275.8 MPa. What will be the average grain size of the same steel
with a yield stress of 206.9 MPa?
Assume the Hall-Petch equation is valid and that changes in the observed
yield stress are due to changes in grain size.
𝑘 𝑘
𝜎𝑦 = 𝜎0 + 137.9 𝑀𝑃𝑎 = 𝜎0 +
𝑑 0.05 𝜎0 = 55.5 𝑀𝑃𝑎
𝑘 𝑘 = 18.43 𝑀𝑃𝑎. 𝑚𝑚1/2
275.8 𝑀𝑃𝑎 = 𝜎0 +
0.07
18.44 𝑀𝑃𝑎. 𝑚𝑚1/2
206.9 = 55.5 𝑀𝑃𝑎 +
𝑑
𝑑 = 0.0148 𝑚𝑚
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The Resolved Shear Stress
• Each of the strengthening mechanisms is described in terms of its effect
on the shear stress required to move a dislocation
• To a first approximation, each of these contributions is additive:
(intrinsic strength: τ)i
• The yield strength is closer to 3x the shear strength required to move a
dislocation
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Strength and Ductility
• This graph
demonstrates the
practical results of
various strengthening
mechanisms.
• Strength can be
increased by more
than an order of
magnitude, but,…
• Ductility almost always
suffers
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