Work hardening

ture below its recrystallization temperature, usually

at the ambient temperature.[5] Cold forming techniques are usually classied into four major groups:
squeezing, bending, drawing, and shearing. Applications include the heading of bolts and cap screws
and the nishing of cold rolled steel. In cold forming, metal is formed at high speed and high pressure
using tool steel or carbide dies. The cold working
of the metal increasing the hardness, yield strength,
and tensile strength.[6]

3
l

Stress ()
0

F
E

e
Strain ()

A phenomenological uniaxial stress-strain curve showing typical

work hardening plastic behavior of materials in uniaxial compression. For work hardening materials the yield stress increases
with increasing plastic deformation. The strain can be decomposed into a recoverable elastic strain ( e ) and an inelastic strain
( p ). The stress at initial yield is 0 .

1 History
Copper was the rst metal in common use for tools and
containers since it is one of the few metals available in
non-oxidized form, not requiring the smelting of an ore.
Copper is easily softened by heating and then cooling (it
does not harden by quenching, as in cool water). In this
annealed state it may then be hammered, stretched and
otherwise formed, progressing toward the desired nal
shape, but becoming harder and less ductile as work progresses. If work continues beyond a certain hardness the
metal will tend to fracture when worked and so it may
be re-annealed periodically as the shape progresses. Annealing is stopped when the workpiece is near its nal
desired shape, and so the nal product will have a desired stiness and hardness. The technique of repouss
exploits these properties of copper, enabling the construction of durable jewelry articles and sculptures (including
the Statue of Liberty).

Work hardening, also known as strain hardening or

cold working, is the strengthening of a metal by plastic
deformation. This strengthening occurs because of
dislocation movements and dislocation generation within
the crystal structure of the material.[1] Many non-brittle
metals with a reasonably high melting point as well as several polymers can be strengthened in this fashion.[2] Alloys not amenable to heat treatment, including low-carbon
steel, are often work-hardened. Some materials cannot
be work-hardened at low temperatures, such as indium,[3]
however others can only be strengthened via work hardening, such as pure copper and aluminum.[4]
Work hardening may be desirable or undesirable depending on the context.
An example of undesirable work hardening is during machining when early passes of a cutter inadvertently work-harden the workpiece surface, causing damage to the cutter during the later passes.
Certain alloys are more prone to this than others;
superalloys such as Inconel require machining strategies that take it into account.

For metal objects designed to ex, such as springs, specialized alloys are usually employed in order to avoid
work hardening (a result of plastic deformation) and
metal fatigue, with specic heat treatments required to
obtain the necessary characteristics.
Devices made from aluminum and its alloys, such as
aircraft, must be carefully designed to minimize or evenly
distribute exure, which can lead to work hardening and
in turn stress cracking, possibly causing catastrophic failure. For this reason modern aluminum aircraft will have
an imposed working lifetime (dependent upon the type
of loads encountered), after which the aircraft must be
retired.

An example of desirable work hardening is that

which occurs in metalworking processes that intentionally induce plastic deformation to exact a shape
change. These processes are known as cold working or cold forming processes. They are characterized by shaping the workpiece at a tempera1

THEORY

Theory

cur to the material under uniaxial compression before the

incidence of plastic deformation make the compressive
Before work hardening, the lattice of the material ex- test fraught with diculties.
hibits a regular, nearly defect-free pattern (almost no dis- A material generally deforms elastically under the inulocations). The defect-free lattice can be created or re- ence of small forces; the material returns quickly to its
stored at any time by annealing. As the material is work original shape when the deforming force is removed. This
hardened it becomes increasingly saturated with new dis- phenomenon is called elastic deformation. This behavlocations, and more dislocations are prevented from nu- ior in materials is described by Hookes Law. Materials
cleating (a resistance to dislocation-formation develops). behave elastically until the deforming force increases beThis resistance to dislocation-formation manifests itself yond the elastic limit, which is also known as the yield
as a resistance to plastic deformation; hence, the observed stress. At that point, the material is permanently destrengthening.
formed and fails to return to its original shape when the
In metallic crystals, irreversible deformation is usually force is removed. This phenomenon is called plastic decarried out on a microscopic scale by defects called dis- formation. For example, if one stretches a coil spring up
locations, which are created by uctuations in local stress to a certain point, it will return to its original shape, but
elds within the material culminating in a lattice rear- once it is stretched beyond the elastic limit, it will remain
rangement as the dislocations propagate through the lat- deformed and won't return to its original state.
tice. At normal temperatures the dislocations are not annihilated by annealing. Instead, the dislocations accumulate, interact with one another, and serve as pinning points
or obstacles that signicantly impede their motion. This
leads to an increase in the yield strength of the material
and a subsequent decrease in ductility.

Elastic deformation stretches the bonds between atoms

away from their equilibrium radius of separation, without applying enough energy to break the inter-atomic
bonds. Plastic deformation, on the other hand, breaks
inter-atomic bonds, and therefore involves the rearrangement of atoms in a solid material.

Such deformation increases the concentration of

dislocations which may subsequently form low-angle
grain boundaries surrounding sub-grains. Cold working
generally results in a higher yield strength as a result of
the increased number of dislocations and the Hall-Petch
eect of the sub-grains, and a decrease in ductility. The
eects of cold working may be reversed by annealing 2.2 Dislocations and lattice strain elds
the material at high temperatures where recovery and
recrystallization reduce the dislocation density.
A materials work hardenability can be predicted by ana- Main article: Dislocation
lyzing a stress-strain curve, or studied in context by performing hardness tests before and after a process.[7]
In materials science parlance, dislocations are dened
as line defects in a materials crystal structure. The
bonds surrounding the dislocation are already elastically
2.1 Elastic and plastic deformation
strained by the defect compared to the bonds between
the constituents of the regular crystal lattice. Therefore,
these bonds break at relatively lower stresses, leading to
Main article: Deformation (engineering)
plastic deformation.
Work hardening is a consequence of plastic deformation,
a permanent change in shape. This is distinct from elastic deformation, which is reversible. Most materials do
not exhibit only one or the other, but rather a combination of the two. The following discussion mostly applies
to metals, especially steels, which are well studied. Work
hardening occurs most notably for ductile materials such
as metals. Ductility is the ability of a material to undergo
plastic deformations before fracture (for example, bending a steel rod until it nally breaks).

The strained bonds around a dislocation are characterized

by lattice strain elds. For example, there are compressively strained bonds directly next to an edge dislocation
and tensilely strained bonds beyond the end of an edge
dislocation. These form compressive strain elds and tensile strain elds, respectively. Strain elds are analogous
to electric elds in certain ways. Specically, the strain
elds of dislocations obey similar laws of attraction and
repulsion; in order to reduce overall strain, compressive
strains are attracted to tensile strains, and vice versa.

The tensile test is widely used to study deformation mechanisms. This is because under compression, most materials will experience trivial (lattice mismatch) and nontrivial (buckling) events before plastic deformation or
fracture occur. Hence the intermediate processes that oc-

The visible (macroscopic) results of plastic deformation

are the result of microscopic dislocation motion. For example, the stretching of a steel rod in a tensile tester is
accommodated through dislocation motion on the atomic
scale.

2.4

Quantication of work hardening

3
deformation have reached their limit, a third mode of deformation occurs: fracture.

2.4 Quantication of work hardening

The stress, , of dislocation is dependent on the shear
modulus, G, the magnitude of the Burgers vector, b, and
the dislocation density, :

1/2

= 0 + Gb

where 0 is the intrinsic strength of the material with low

dislocation density and is a correction factor specic to
the material.
As shown in Figure 1 and the equation above, work hardening has a half root dependency on the number of disFigure 1: The yield stress of an ordered material has a half-root
locations. The material exhibits high strength if there are
dependency on the number of dislocations present.
either high levels of dislocations (greater than 1014 dislocations per m2 ) or no dislocations. A moderate number
7
9
2
2.3 Increase of dislocations and work of dislocations (between 10 and 10 dislocations per m )
typically results in low strength.

hardening

Increase in the number of dislocations is a quantication

of work hardening. Plastic deformation occurs as a consequence of work being done on a material; energy is
added to the material. In addition, the energy is almost
always applied fast enough and in large enough magnitude to not only move existing dislocations, but also to
produce a great number of new dislocations by jarring or
working the material suciently enough. New dislocations are generated in proximity to a Frank-Read source.
Yield strength is increased in a cold-worked material.
Using lattice strain elds, it can be shown that an environment lled with dislocations will hinder the movement of any one dislocation. Because dislocation motion
is hindered, plastic deformation cannot occur at normal
stresses. Upon application of stresses just beyond the
yield strength of the non-cold-worked material, a coldworked material will continue to deform using the only
mechanism available: elastic deformation, the regular
scheme of stretching or compressing of electrical bonds
(without dislocation motion) continues to occur, and the
modulus of elasticity is unchanged. Eventually the stress
is great enough to overcome the strain-eld interactions
and plastic deformation resumes.
However, ductility of a work-hardened material is decreased. Ductility is the extent to which a material can
undergo plastic deformation, that is, it is how far a material can be plastically deformed before fracture. A coldworked material is, in eect, a normal (brittle) material
that has already been extended through part of its allowed
plastic deformation. If dislocation motion and plastic deformation have been hindered enough by dislocation accumulation, and stretching of electronic bonds and elastic

2.5 Example
For an extreme example, in a tensile test a bar of steel
is strained to just before the distance at which it usually
fractures. The load is released smoothly and the material relieves some of its strain by decreasing in length.
The decrease in length is called the elastic recovery, and
the end result is a work-hardened steel bar. The fraction
of length recovered (length recovered/original length) is
equal to the yield-stress divided by the modulus of elasticity. (Here we discuss true stress in order to account for
the drastic decrease in diameter in this tensile test.) The
length recovered after removing a load from a material
just before it breaks is equal to the length recovered after
removing a load just before it enters plastic deformation.
The work-hardened steel bar has a large enough number
of dislocations that the strain eld interaction prevents
all plastic deformation. Subsequent deformation requires
a stress that varies linearly with the strain observed, the
slope of the graph of stress vs. strain is the modulus of
elasticity, as usual.
The work-hardened steel bar fractures when the applied
stress exceeds the usual fracture stress and the strain exceeds usual fracture strain. This may be considered to be
the elastic limit and the yield stress is now equal to the
fracture toughness, which is of course, much higher than
a non-work-hardened-steel yield stress.
The amount of plastic deformation possible is zero, which
is obviously less than the amount of plastic deformation
possible for a non-work-hardened material. Thus, the
ductility of the cold-worked bar is reduced.

Substantial and prolonged cavitation can also produce

strain hardening.

PROCESSES

4 Processes

[8]
Additionally, jewelers will construct structurally sound The following is a list of cold forming processes:
rings and other wearable objects (especially those worn
on the hands) that require much more durability (than
Rolling
earrings for example) by utilizing a materials ability to be
Swaging
work hardened. While casting rings is done for a number
of economical reasons (saving a great deal of time and
Extrusion
cost of labor), a master jeweler may utilize the ability of
Forging
a material to be work hardened and apply some combi Sizing
nation of cold forming techniques during the production
of a piece.
Riveting

Staking

Empirical relations

There are two common mathematical descriptions of the

work hardening phenomenon. Hollomons equation is a
power law relationship between the stress and the amount
of plastic strain:

Coining
Peening
Burnishing
Heading
Hubbing
Thread rolling
Bending

Knp

Angle bending

where is the stress, K is the strength index or strength

coecient, p is the plastic strain and n is the strain hardening exponent. Ludwiks equation is similar but includes
the yield stress:

Roll bending
Draw and compression
Roll forming
Seaming
Flanging

= y +

Knp

If a material has been subjected to prior deformation (at

low temperature) then the yield stress will be increased by
a factor depending on the amount of prior plastic strain
0 :

Straightening
Shearing
Slitting
Blanking
Piercing
Lancing

= y + K(0 + p )n
The constant K is structure dependent and is inuenced by
processing while n is a material property normally lying
in the range 0.20.5. The strain hardening index can be
described by:

Perforating
Notching
Nibbling
Shaving
Trimming
Cuto

n=

d
d log()
=
d log()
d

This equation can be evaluated from the slope of a log()

- log() plot. Rearranging allows a determination of the
rate of strain hardening at a given stress and strain:

Dinking
Drawing
Tube drawing
Wire drawing
Spinning

=n
d

Embossing
Stretch forming

5
Sheet metal drawing

Metal surfaces must be clean and scale-free

Ironing

Intermediate anneals may be required to compensate for loss of ductility that accompanies strain
hardening

Superplastic forming

Techniques have been designed to maintain the general

The imparted directional properties may be detrishape of the workpiece during work hardening, including
mental
shot peening and equal channel angular extrusion. The
range of possible shapes is rather broad, including heads,
Undesirable residual stress may be produced
threads, steps, knurls, chamfers, grooves, undercuts, and
tapers.
Due to the large capital costs required to set up a cold
working process the process is usually only suitable for
large volume productions.[5]

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages:[5]
No heating required
Better surface nish
Superior dimensional control

Intermediate annealings may be required to reach the required ductility to continue cold working a workpiece,
otherwise it may fracture if the ultimate tensile strength
is exceeded. An anneal may also be used to obtain
the proper engineering properties required in the nal
workpiece. Also, the distorted grain structure that gives
the workpiece its superior strength can lead to residual
stresses.[10]

Cold worked items suer from a phenomenon known

as springback, or elastic springback. After the deform Directional properties can be imparted into the ing force is removed from the workpiece, the workpiece
springs back slightly. The amount a material springs back
metal
is equal to the yield strain (the strain at the yield point) for
Contamination problems are minimized
the material.[11]
Better reproducibility and interchangeability

The increase in strength due to strain hardening is comparable to that of heat treating. Therefore, it is sometimes
more economical to cold work a less costly and weaker
metal than to hot work a more expensive metal that can be
heat treated, especially if precision or a ne surface nish
is required as well. The cold working process also reduces
waste as compared to machining, or even eliminates with
near net shape methods.[5] The material savings becomes
even more signicant at larger volumes, and even more so
when using expensive materials, such as copper, nickel,
gold, tantalum, and palladium.[9] The saving on raw material as a result of cold forming can be very signicant,
as is saving machining time. Production cycle times when
cold working are very short. On multi-station machinery,
production cycle times are even less. This can be very
advantageous for large production runs.
During cold working the part undergoes work hardening
and the microstructure deforms to follow the contours of
the part surface. Unlike hot working, the inclusions and
grains distort to follow the contour of the surface, resulting in anisotropic engineering properties.[10]
Disadvantages:[5]

6 References
[1] Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 60.
[2] Van Melick, H. G. H.; Govaert, L. E.; Meijer, H. E. H.
(2003), On the origin of strain hardening in glassy polymers, Polymer 44 (8): 24932502, doi:10.1016/s00323861(03)00112-5
[3] Swenson, C. A. (1955), Properties of Indium and Thallium at low temperatures, Physical Review 100 (6):
1607., doi:10.1103/physrev.100.1607
[4] Smith & Hashemi 2006, p. 246.
[5] Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 375.
[6] Deringer-Ney, Cold Forming and Cold Heading Process, April 29th, 2014
[7] Cheng, Y. T.; Cheng, C. M. (1998), Scaling approach
to conical indentation in elastic-plastic solids with work
hardening (PDF), Journal of Applied Physics 84 (3):
12841291., doi:10.1063/1.368196
[8] Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 408.

Greater forces are required

[9] Deringer-Ney, Cold Forming and Cold Heading Advantages, April 29, 2014

Heavier and more powerful equipment and stronger

tooling are required

[10] Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 378.

Metal is less ductile

[11] Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 376.

6.1

Bibliography

Degarmo, E. Paul; Black, J T.; Kohser, Ronald A.

(2003), Materials and Processes in Manufacturing
(9th ed.), Wiley, ISBN 0-471-65653-4.
Smith, William F.; Hashemi, Javad (2006), Foundations of Materials Science and Engineering (4th ed.),
McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-295358-6.

External links
Engineers Edge - Work hardening
Nuclear Power Fundamentals - Work hardening

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