MME 101 Fundamentals of Materials Engineering

Lecture 16-17
A. K. M. Bazlur Rashid Part C: Properties of Materials
Professor, Dept. of Materials and Metallurgical Eng.
Bangladesh Univ. of Eng. and Tech., Dhaka-1000 2 – Yielding and strengthening methods

Lecture outcome (LO)

At the end of this lecture, students should be able to

1. explain why many materials cannot achieve their theoretical strength,
2. describe why and how yielding occurs in crystal
and explain the factors that control motion of dislocations, and
3. list and analyse various strengthening mechanisms.

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 Part 1
Yielding in Crystal

1. Strength of a Perfect Crystal

𝝈
❑ The slope of the interatomic force–distance curve
(or, stress-strain curve) at the equilibrium separation
is proportional to Young’s modulus E. ≈2𝝈

• Interatomic forces typically drop off to negligible values at

separation of atom centres of 2𝑟0 . 𝝈 Slope E
• The maximum in the force–distance curve is typically
reached at 1.25𝑟0 separation, and if the stress applied
to the material exceeds this maximum force per bond, 0.25 𝑟0 𝜺
fracture is bound to occur.
• We call the stress beyond which this bond rupture takes
place 𝜎,
ത the ideal strength—a material cannot be
stronger than this. 𝑟0 𝑟0
2𝑟0

the ideal strength

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 ❑ From the figure,
𝝈
𝜎𝑦 = 𝐸𝜀
0.25 𝑟0 ≈2𝝈
2 𝜎ത = 𝐸
𝑟0
𝐸
𝜎ത = 𝝈 Slope E
8

❑ A more refined analysis gives ideal strength 0.25 𝑟0 𝜺

about E/15 instead of E/8.
• A solid cannot be stronger than E/15.

𝑟0 𝑟0
2𝑟0

the ideal strength

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𝐸
𝜎𝑦 ≅ E/15
15

Glass & some ceramics – close to ideal values.

Some polymers – near the line; although they
have low strength, they also have low modulus.
All metals, however, have yield strengths far
below than their ideal strengths – as much as
105 factor lower.

Why ?
data for normalized yield strength, 𝝈𝒚 Τ𝑬
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 ❑ Many important engineering materials (e.g., metals) were normally made up
of crystals, and a perfect crystal is an assembly of atoms packed together
in a regularly repeating pattern.

❑ But crystals are not perfect — they have defects in them.

❑ Just as the strength of a chain is determined by the strength of the weakest link,
so the strength of a crystal—and thus of the material—is usually limited by the
defects that are present in it.

❑ The presence and motion of large number of dislocations allow materials

to deform plastically at stress levels much smaller than ideal strength.

❑ If dislocations cannot move, plastic deformation doesn’t happen !!

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2. Dislocation Motion and The Slip System

Motion of Dislocations 
❑ A shear stress () exerts a force on a
dislocation, pushing it through the crystal.

❑ For yielding to take place, this force must


Edge dislocation line moves parallel to applied stress
overcome the resistance to the motion of
the dislocation.

❑ The resistance of dislocation motion is due


to (1) intrinsic friction opposing dislocation
motion, plus (2) contributions from alloying
or work-hardening.

Screw dislocation line moves perpendicular to applied stress
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 Slip and Slip System

❑ Slip is the movement of large numbers of dislocations to produce

macroscopic plastic deformation.

❑ Slip allows deformation without breaking resulting ductility.

❑ Though individual bonds must be broken for dislocation to move,

new bonds are formed throughout the slip process.

❑ When a shear stress is applied to the dislocation, the atoms are displaced,
causing the dislocation to move one atomic distance in the slip direction.
❑ Continued movement of the dislocation eventually creates a step,
and the crystal is deformed.

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❑ Analogy of dislocation movement — motion of caterpillars, moving of carpets.

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❑ Dislocations do not move with the same degree of ease

on all crystallographic planes of atoms and in all crystallographic directions.

❑ There is a preferred plane (slip plane), and in that plane

there are specific directions (slip directions) along which dislocation motion occurs.

❑ For a particular crystal structure, these slip planes and directions

are those of highest packing density.

❑ The combination of the slip plane and the slip direction is termed the slip system.

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 (a) A 𝟏𝟏𝟏 𝟏𝟏𝟎 slip system shown within an FCC unit cell.
(b) The (111) plane from (a) and three 𝟏𝟏𝟎 slip directions (as indicated by arrows)
within that plane constitute possible slip systems.
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Slip Systems for Some Common FCC, BCC and HCP Metals

Large slip
system

**

DUCTILE

Few slip
system

BRITTLE
** Some slip systems operable only at high temperatures.

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 Factors Controlling Slip

Materials (Internal) Characteristics

1. Burger’s vector, 𝒃
• Short 𝒃 favours slip

2. Slip systems
• 5 or more slip systems favour slip
o 3 in HCP crystals (Be, Mg, Ti, Zn, Zr) – brittle
o 12 in FCC crystals (Al, Ni, Cu, Ag, Pt, Au) – ductile
o From 12 up to 48 in BCC crystals (-Fe, V, Cr, Mo, W)
(many of which operates at high temperatures) – ductile

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Metals: Easier dislocation motion

3. Directionality in bonding
• Non-directionality of bond
(e.g., metallic bond) favours slip Covalent Ceramics: (Si, Diamond)
o Directionality of covalent solids (diamond,
Si, SiC) hinders dislocation movement
o Charge conflicts in ionic solids (NaCl, Mg)
hinders dislocation movement

Ionic Ceramics: (NaCl)

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 External Conditions

1. Temperature
• High temperature favours slip
(as new slip systems become operative, as in BCC crystals)

2. Strain rate
• Low strain rate favours slip
• High strain rate (i.e., impact) favours brittle failure

3. Type of stress
• Shear and compression – encourage slip
• Uniaxial tension – permits slip
• Triaxial tension – discourage slip

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3. Slip in Single Crystals

F
❑ Dislocations move along the slip plane in response to shear (+) ≠ 90
stresses applied along these planes and directions. Normal to

slip plane 
• Resolved shear force, 𝐹𝑅 = 𝐹 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜆 A

𝐴
• Area of slip plane, 𝐴𝑅 =
𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜙 Slip
Slip direction
plane, AR
• Resolved shear stress resulting from the applied
tensile stress, σ = F/A, produces the plastic deformation, Shear force, FR

𝐹𝑅 𝐹 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜆 𝐹
𝜏𝑅 = = = 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜆 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜙
𝐴𝑅 𝐴Τ𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜙 𝐴
𝜏𝑅 = 𝜎 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜆 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜙
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 ❑ When the resolved shear stress becomes sufficiently large,
the crystal will start to yield
• dislocations start moving along the most favorably oriented slip system,
which produces the maximum resolved shear stress, R,max

❑ The minimum shear stress required to initiate slip is termed as the

critical resolved shear stress (CRSS):

𝜏𝑅,𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝜎 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜆 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜙 𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝜏𝐶𝑅𝑆𝑆

❑ Thus, the condition of yielding

𝜏𝐶𝑅𝑆𝑆
𝜎𝑦 =
𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜆 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜙 𝑚𝑎𝑥
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Condition for dislocation motion : 𝜏𝑅 = 𝜎 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜆 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜙 > 𝜏𝐶𝑅𝑆𝑆

❑ Crystal orientation can make it easier or harder F

for dislocations to move. Normal to (+) ≠ 90
slip plane  
A

Slip plane,
AR Slip direction

Shear force, FR

F
❑ The minimum stress necessary to introduce yielding
occurs for single crystal when  =  = 45,and under these conditions, y = 2 R
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 Direction of force

Stretched
Zn crystal
Slip plane

Each step (shear band) is resulted from

the generation of many dislocations and
their propagation in the slip system with
maximum resolved shear stress

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4. Slip in Polycrystalline Materials

❑ Random grain orientations with respect to applied stress

makes slipping more complex.
• Slip directions vary from crystal to crystal
✓some grains are favourably oriented than the others
✓even some favourably oriented grains cannot deform
due to adjacent, less-favourably-oriented grains
• Dislocation cannot easily cross grain boundaries
✓due to the change in slip plane directions and disorder
at the grain boundary.

❑ As a result, polycrystalline metals are stronger than single crystals. slip lines in deformed
polycrystalline copper
• exception: perfect single crystal without any defects (as in whiskers)

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 Part 2
Strengthening Methods

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5. Strengthening Methods

❑ Engineering alloys are designed to have maximum strength

with some ductility and toughness.
• chemical composition of the alloy provides an alloy only with a base mechanical properties,
which can be further improved if necessary

❑ In this section, we examine ways of increasing the strength of material.

❑ So far, we have seen that

(a) crystals contain dislocations.
(b) plastic deformation depends on the ability of dislocations to move.

❑ Thus, all strengthening methods rely on impeding the motion of dislocations.

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 ❑ Thus, the general strategy of strengthening a material is :
“make it harder for dislocations to move”

❑ FOUR methods by which the general strengthening strategy can be achieved :

1. Grain size reduction
2. Solid solution strengthening
3. Work hardening or strain hardening
4. Precipitation and disperse hardening

A point to remember
The price for enhancement of strength and hardness is in the reduction of ductility !!
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#1: Strengthening by Grain Size Reduction

Adjacent grains have different
crystallographic orientations
Obstacle: Grain boundary
Creates slip plane discontinues – causing difficulty
in dislocation motion

❑ Grain boundaries impede the motion of dislocations.

• grain boundaries act as discontinuity in the lattice
• the slip plane in a grain does not continue in the
same direction beyond the boundary
• dislocation needs to change direction on moving
from grain A to B, which requires more energy

❑ So, dislocations are stopped by a grain boundary High angle grain boundaries cause greater
and pile up against it. mismatch along the grain boundary and offer
greater resistance to dislocation motion 26/45

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 ❑ Small grain size generates high grain boundary surface area
• more barrier to impede dislocation motion and slip
• high yield strength (σy ) and toughness

❑ Variation of yield strength of a material with its grain size

according to Hall-Petch relation:
0 = Yield strength at infinite grain size (i.e., single crystal)
𝜎𝑦 = 𝜎0 + 𝑘𝑦 𝑑 −1/2 ky = Hall-Petch constant
d = Average grain diameter

❑ Grain size 𝒅 can be controlled by:

 the solidification process (faster cooling rates produce finer grains)
 plastic deformation (deformation followed by recrystallisation produces new finer crystals)
 appropriate heat treatment (e.g., normalising heat treatment produces new refined grains)
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Grain Strengthening Example:

Brass (70Cu-30Zn alloy)

Dislocation movement in complex alloys are

more difficult (due to presence of twin boundary,
phase boundary along with the grain boundary)

Finer the grains, larger the strength

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 #2: Solid Solution Strengthening

Obstacle: Impurity atoms

offers obstruction in dislocation motion

❑ Just like dislocations, alloying elements impose localized lattice strain

in the host lattice due to the difference in size.

compression tension compression

tension
small substitutional atom large substitutional atom

stresses around an edge dislocation stresses around an impurity atom

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❑ Impurity atoms diffuse to positions where they reduce lattice strain.

• smaller solute atoms sit at base of edge dislocations
• larger solute atoms sit at top of edge dislocations

Smaller impurity atoms with their tensile strains tend to Larger impurity atoms with their compressive strains tend
congregate in the compressive area above the slip plane to congregate in the tensile area below the slip plane

❑ This results partial cancellation of impurity-dislocation lattice strains,

and increases the stress required to move dislocations.
• resistance to slip is increased
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 Solid solution strengthening: Example
Alloying with Ni strengthens Cu

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Elongation in 2 inch (%)

Tensile Strength (MPa)

400 50

40
300
30

200 20
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50

Ni Content (wt.%) Ni Content (wt.%)

What happens to the right side of these diagrams,

i.e., alloys containing more than 50 wt.% Ni?
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Effects of several alloying elements

on the yield strength of copper.

• Ni and Zn atoms are about the same size as Cu

atoms, but Be and Sn atoms are much different from
Cu atoms.
• Increasing both atomic size difference and
amount of alloying element increases solid-solution
strengthening.

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 #3: Work Hardening

Obstacle: Already existing dislocations

offers obstruction in motion of other dislocations

❑ Also known as strain hardening or cold working

❑ Ductile metals become stronger when they are deformed plastically

(at temperatures well below the melting point).
• With plastic deformation, dislocation density increases due to dislocation multiplication
and/or the formation of new dislocations
• Average distance between dislocations decreases and the dislocations start blocking
the motion of each other.

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❑ When the strain fields around dislocations are in the same plane,
they repel each other if they have the same sign and attract/annihilate
each other if they have opposite signs.

Repulsion of Dislocations Attraction of Dislocations

C C C T

T T T C

Dislocation annihilation
(formation of perfect crystal)
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 common cold working
(room temperature) operations ❑ The percent cold work (%CW) is often
used to express the degree of plastic
deformation:
𝐴0 − 𝐴𝑑
%𝐶𝑊 = x 100
𝐴0
A0 = original cross-section area
Ad = area after deformation.

Points to remember
• The percent cold work, %CW, is just another
measure of the degree of plastic deformation,
in addition to strain or %EL,
• It is also known as percent reduction in area, %RA.

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With cold working

• YS, TS increases
• Ductility decreases
• E remains unchanged

influence of cold work on the stress–strain behavior

of a low-carbon steel
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 Effects of cold working on yield strength and ductility

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Effect of cold work on stress-strain diagram:

A summary

Stress

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 Restoring Ductility after Work Hardening

❑ Effect of cold working can be reversed (i.e., restoring ductility) if the cold-worked
sample is heated about 1 hour at high temperature.
❑ Name of this heat treatment is annealing.
❑ During this treatment
% EL is increased while TS is decreased.

❑ Restoration of ductility in 2 steps:

(1) Recovery
(2) Recrystallisation
Sometimes recrystallisation is followed by
grain growth if the time of heat treatment is high
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Recovery Recrystallisation Grain growth

• increased diffusion • some residual stresses • small grains merged and form
remained in some grains even larger grains with low grain
• enhanced dislocation motion
after recovery stage. boundary area.
• decreased dislocation density by
• these strained grains replaced
annihilation, formation of low-
by new strain-free grains with
energy dislocation configurations
low dislocation density.
• relieved internal strain energy
• this occurs through nucleation
and growth of new grains. 40/45

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  Recrystallisation occurs more easily
as temperature increases.

 Recrystallisation temperature
where recrystallisation occurs in 1h
 ⅓ – ½ of Tm

 Recrystallisation temperature decreases

as %CW is increased.

%CW below which

no crystallisation takes place

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#4: Precipitation and Dispersion Hardening

Obstacle: Hard second phase particles

offers obstruction in motion of dislocations

❑ If a material contains second phase particles in the microstructure,

the particles offer obstruction in the motion of moving dislocations.
direction of dislocation movement direction of dislocation movement Obviously, the greatest
hardening is produced if
(1) the particles are hard and
strong, and
(2) they are closely spaced.
dislocation precipitate

dislocation cuts through dislocation precipitate dislocation

a soft precipitate line loop
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 ❑ Small particles can also be introduced in the structure

1. as precipitates particles during age hardening or

precipitation hardening heat treatment
• In “Duralumin” (an Al - 4% Cu alloy) small, closely spaced Structures obtained during age hardening
precipitates of the hard compound CuAl2. of Al-4%Cu alloys
• In most steels, different carbides are precipitated.

2. as dispersoid (such as an oxide) particles during the

making of dispersion-strengthened composites
• Example: SiC reinforced aluminium composites

SiC dispersoid in Al-SIC composite

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To Summarise:

 Motion of dislocations causes yielding or permanent deformation in materials.

 Strengthening strategy: Making dislocation motion difficult.

 Strengthening mechanisms:
 decrease grain size
 add solid solution impurities
 cold work
 precipitate second phase particles

 Heating (annealing) can reduce hardening effect by reducing dislocation density

and increasing grain size, which increase ductility but decrease strength.

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 Next Class
Lecture 18-19
Part C: Properties of Materials
3 – Failure of materials in services

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