Strengthening Techniques in metals

o Work hardening
o Solid solution strengthening and alloying
o Precipitation hardening
o Grain Boundry strengthening
o Transformation hardening

Work hardening
 Work hardening, also known as strain hardening is the strengthening of a metal or
polymer by plastic deformation.
 This strengthening occurs because of dislocation movements and dislocation generation
within the crystal structure of the material.
 Many non-brittle metals with a reasonably high melting point as well as several polymers
can be strengthened in this fashion.
 Alloys not amenable to heat treatment, including low-carbon steel, are often work-
hardened. Some materials cannot be work-hardened at low temperatures, such as
indium, however others can only be strengthened via work hardening, such as pure
copper and aluminium.
The primary species responsible for work hardening are dislocations. Dislocations interact with
each other by generating stress fields in the material. The interaction between the stress fields of
dislocations can impede dislocation motion by repulsive or attractive interactions. Additionally, if
two dislocations cross, dislocation line entanglement occurs, causing the formation of a jog which
opposes dislocation motion. These entanglements and jogs act as pinning points, which oppose
dislocation motion. Both of these processes are more likely to occur when more dislocations are
present,
Increasing the dislocation density increases the yield strength which results in a higher shear
stress required to move the dislocations. This process is easily observed while working a
material (in metals cold working of process).
Solid solution strengthening and alloying

This is a schematic illustrating how the lattice is

strained by the addition of interstitial solute.
Notice the strain in the lattice that the solute atoms
cause.
The interstitial solute could be carbon in iron for
example.
The carbon atoms in the interstitial sites of the
lattice creates a stress field that impedes dislocation
movement.
Therefore, the yield strength of the metal will
increase.

Figure-1

 For this strengthening mechanism, solute atoms of one element are added to another,
resulting in either substitutional or interstitial point defects in the crystal (see Figure 1).
 The solute atoms cause lattice distortions that impede dislocation motion, increasing
the yield stress of the material.
 Solute atoms have stress fields around them which can interact with those of
dislocations.
 The presence of solute atoms impart compressive or tensile stresses to the lattice,
depending on solute size, which interfere with nearby dislocations, causing the solute
atoms to act as potential barriers.
 Increasing the concentration of the solute atoms will increase the yield strength of a
material, but there is a limit to the amount of solute that can be added, and one should
look at the phase diagram for the material and the alloy to make sure that a ‘second
phase’ is not created.
 In general, the solid solution strengthening depends on
o the concentration of the solute atoms,
o shear modulus of the solute atoms,
o size of solute atoms,
o valency of solute atoms (for ionic materials), and
o the symmetry of the solute stress field.
 The magnitude of strengthening is higher for non-symmetric stress fields because these
solutes can interact with both edge and screw dislocations, whereas symmetric stress
fields, which cause only volume change and not shape change, can only interact with
edge dislocations.
Precipitation hardening
 Precipitation hardening, also called age hardening or particle hardening, is a heat
treatment technique used to increase the yield strength of malleable materials, including
most structural alloys of aluminium, magnesium, nickel, titanium, and
some steels and stainless steels.
 In superalloys, it is known to cause yield strength anomaly providing excellent high-
temperature strength.
 Precipitation hardening relies on changes in solid solubility with temperature to produce
fine particles of an impurity phase, which impede the movement of dislocations, or
defects in a crystal's lattice.
 Since dislocations are often the dominant carriers of plasticity, this serves to harden the
material. The impurities play the same role as the particle substances in particle-
reinforced composite materials.

In most binary systems, alloying above a concentration given by the phase diagram will cause
the formation of a second phase. A second phase can also be created by mechanical or thermal
treatments. The particles that compose the second phase precipitates act as pinning points in a
similar manner to solutes, though the particles are not necessarily single atoms.
The dislocations in a material can interact with the precipitate atoms in one of two ways (see
Figure 2).
If the precipitate atoms are small, the dislocations would cut through them. As a result, new
surfaces (b in Figure 2) of the particle would get exposed to the matrix and the particle-matrix
interfacial energy would increase.
For larger precipitate particles, looping or bowing of the dislocations would occur and result in
dislocations getting longer.
Hence, at a critical radius of about 5 nm, dislocations will preferably cut across the obstacle,
while for a radius of 30 nm, the dislocations will readily bow or loop to overcome the obstacle.

This is a schematic illustrating how the lattice is strained by

the addition of substitutional solute. Notice the strain in the
lattice that the solute atom causes.
Grain boundary strengthening

In a polycrystalline metal, grain size has a tremendous influence on the mechanical properties.
Because grains usually have varying crystallographic orientations, grain boundaries arise. While
undergoing deformation, slip motion will take place. Grain boundaries act as an impediment to
dislocation motion for the following two reasons:
1. Dislocation must change its direction of motion due to the differing orientation of grains.[4] 2.
Discontinuity of slip planes from grain one to grain two.[4]
The stress required to move a dislocation from one grain to another in order to plastically deform
a material depends on the grain size. The average number of dislocations per grain decreases
with average grain size (see Figure 3). A lower number of dislocations per grain results in a lower
dislocation 'pressure' building up at grain boundaries. This makes it more difficult for dislocations
to move into adjacent grains. This relationship is the Hall-Petch relationship and can be
mathematically described as follows:

where is a constant, is the average grain diameter and is the original yield
stress.
The fact that the yield strength increases with decreasing grain size is accompanied by the
caveat that the grain size cannot be decreased infinitely. As the grain size decreases, more free
volume is generated resulting in lattice mismatch. Below approximately 10 nm, the grain
boundaries will tend to slide instead; a phenomenon known as grain-boundary sliding. If the grain
size gets too small, it becomes more difficult to fit the dislocations in the grain and the stress
required to move them is less. It was not possible to produce materials with grain sizes below
10 nm until recently, so the discovery that strength decreases below a critic

Transformation hardening
This method of hardening is used for steels.
High-strength steels generally fall into three basic categories, classified by the strengthening
mechanism employed. 1- solid-solution-strengthened steels (rephos steels) 2- grain-refined
steels or high strength low alloy steels (HSLA) 3- transformation-hardened steels
Transformation-hardened steels are the third type of high-strength steels.
 These steels use predominantly higher levels of C and Mn along with heat treatment to
increase strength.
 The finished product will have a duplex micro-structure of ferrite with varying levels of
degenerate martensite.
 This allows for varying levels of strength. There are three basic types of transformation-
hardened steels. These are dual-phase (DP), transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP),
and martensitic steels.
 The annealing process for dual -phase steels consists of
o first holding the steel in the alpha + gamma temperature region for a set period of
time.
o During that time C and Mn diffuse into the austenite leaving a ferrite of greater
purity.
o The steel is then quenched so that the austenite is transformed into martensite,
and the ferrite remains on cooling.
o The steel is then subjected to a temper cycle to allow some level of marten-site
decomposition.
o By controlling the amount of martensite in the steel, as well as the degree of
temper, the strength level can be controlled. Depending on processing and
chemistry, the strength level can range from 350 to 960 MPa.
 TRIP steels also use C and Mn, along with heat treatment, in order to retain small
amounts of Austen and bainite in a ferrite matrix. Thermal processing for TRIP steels
again involves
o annealing the steel in the a + g region for a period of time sufficient to allow C
and Mn to diffuse into austenite.
o The steel is then quenched to a point above the martensite start temperature and
held there. This allows the formation of bainite, an austenite decomposition
product.
o While at this temperature, more C is allowed to enrich the retained austenite.
This, in turn, lowers the martensite start temperature to below room temperature.
o Upon final quenching a metastable austenite is retained in the predominantly
ferrite matrix along with small amounts of bainite (and other forms of
decomposed austenite).
o This combination of micro-structures has the added benefits of higher strengths
and resistance to necking during forming. This offers great improvements in
formability over other high-strength steels.
 o Essentially, as the TRIP steel is being formed, it becomes much stronger. Tensile
strengths of TRIP steels are in the range of 600-960 MPa.
 Martensitic steels are also high in C and Mn. These are fully quenched to martensite
during processing.
 The martensite structure is then tempered back to the appropriate strength level, adding
toughness to the steel. Tensile strengths for these steels range as high as 1500 MPa.