Institute of Metals Division - The Yielding and Strain-aging of Carburized and Nitrided Single Crystals of Iron

Annealed, .Poly crystalline, low carbon steel exhibits a phenomenon known as the "yield point." If such a steel is loaded in tension, the load increases steadily with elastic strain, drops suddenly, fluctuates about some constant load value for a time and then rises with further strain. The load at which the sudden drop occurs is called the "upper yield point"; the load at which deformation proceeds at constant load is known as the "lower yield point"; the amount of elongation at constant load is termed the "yield point elongation." Deformation which occurs during the yield point elongation is heterogeneous in nature, deformed metal existing next to undeformed metal. The drop in load from the upper yield point is concurrent with the formation of a band of deformed metal which usually appears at a stress concentration such as a fillet and at an angle of approximately 45" with the direction of pull. As deformation proceeds during the yield point elongation, the deformed region grows until the entire specimen has been strained an amount equal to the strain in the first band. A phenomenon very often associated with the yield point is that of strain aging. Aging in steels may be of two types: quench aging, or precipitation hardening, and strain-aging. Strain aging differs from precipitation hardening in that if the metal is merely strained instead of given a solution anneal and quenched, it then undergoes changes in properties similar to those observed in quench aging. The yield point effect and strain aging are most markedly exhibited by low carbon steel, but have been observed in other alloys. Numerous explanations for the mechanisms of both phenomena have been advanced, but the evidence for the acceptance of any of the hypotheses is incomplete. One of the explanations of the yield point phenomenon frequently proposed is that there exists a honeycomb of grain boundary material that supports the load above the yield strength of the ferrite and that when this network ruptures, the ferrite flows with no increase in load. This notion was first advanced by Dalbyl in 1913 and has been since put forward in more concrete form by many investigators. The testing of this hypothesis was, in part, the object of the present investigation. Similarly, the mechanism by which strain aging occurs remains to be explained. Presumably, it is a precipitation hardening phenomenon similar to quench aging, the precipitation being initiated by strain. However, it is not known whether the process is a solution and precipitation effect or a change in solubility due to strain. One obvious method of determining whether or not the yield point is a grain boundary phenomenon is to determine if single crystals exhibit a yield point. Low and Gensamer2 have shown that carbon and nitrogen are responsible for the yield point and aging in steel and that these effects can be eliminated by the removal of these elements through wet hydrogen purification. Single crystals that have been grown in wet hydrogen treated material must then be recarburized or re-nitrided in order to evaluate the effect of grain boundaries. In the present investigation, single crystals of iron which had been annealed in wet hydrogen to remove the carbon and nitrogen were cut into two specimens having the same orientation with respect to the tension axis. Of these, one specimen was pulled in tension in the wet hydrogen treated state and the other was carburized or nitrided and tested similarly. All the crystals were examined for a yield-point and strain aging. The grain boundary hypothesis for the explanation of the yield point in steel has been tested only indirectly previously. Arrowsmith,3 Andrew and Lee,4 Edwards and Pfeil,5 Fell,6 Ludwik and Scheu,7 Winlock and Leiter8 and others found a decrease in proportional limit and yield point effect with an in-