Chapter 4 Work hardening

Publisher SummaryThis chapter describes the different aspects of work hardening. Work hardening is one of the characteristic properties of most metallic alloys. It is also probably the most useful because it is the fundamental cause of their tenacity, or their capacity, in the presence of internal flaws or geometrical defects to resist loading. Plastic flow of crystalline materials takes place by the movement of dislocations along crystal planes under the influence of an applied stress. Work hardening is a consequence of the fact that the stress required for dislocation movement usually increases during plastic flow because the dislocations become increasingly hindered by microstructural obstacles. Deformation bands could be described as regions within grains that deform relatively homogeneously, but with slip characteristics that are different from those of adjacent regions. Shear bands are usually the regions of strong localized shears, both within grains and over many grains, often extending to macroscopic dimensions.