On the mechanism of work hardening in face-centred cubic metals with special reference to polycrystalline copper: II

Abstract

Rods of annealed polycrystalline copper (99.991%) were deformed in tension at 77, 195 and 293°k. The initial mode of hardening was linear up to a temperature-depended tensile stress [sgrave]c; the mechanism was the same as the one leading to linear hardening (stage II) in single crystals. The assumption that at stresses above [sgrave]c ‘yielding’ took place by the spread of slip from some of the small slip zones characteristic of the linear stage, and that this resulted in interaction hardening, is shown to account satisfactorily for the parabolic shape of the stress-strain curves above [sgrave]c.