The Nature of Work-Hardening

Abstract

Two kinds of work-hardening are discussed, interaction-hardening and source-hardening. Interaction-hardening arises because a large stress must be applied to move a dislocation through a material which already contains a large number of dislocations. This paper is mainly concerned with source-hardening which occurs because the sources of easy glide become inactive. Additional glide occurs by the use of sources which act at a higher stress level. Source-hardening is the most important kind of hardening at small strains since then the dislocation density is small.