Hardening And Its Different Mechanisms

Hardening is applied in several industries including metallurgy. In heat treating, it is the process of strengthening alloys. It undergoes several processes where dislocations or defects are introduced in a crystal. This allows the material to avoid slipping. The concept of dislocating crystals is available in all mechanisms of the process except in martensitic transformations.

Hardening mechanisms

It is quite obvious that the process produces hardness in any material. To learn more about this metallurgical term, here are some of the main mechanisms used in the process.

Hall-Petch. This is also known as grain boundary strengthening where hardening becomes an end result of grain size decrease. This mechanism influences the actual output of the materials in terms of dislocation movement and yield strength.

Work hardening. This concept is also known by the name cold work. It strengthens the material after a plastic is deformed. The formation of new dislocations prevents old ones from expanding. This makes the material stronger after the process.

Solid solution strengthening. This is significant in adding strength to a metal. It works after adding atoms of an alloying element to the base metal. The diffusion results to the solid solution and may also lead to the formation of a second phase.

Precipitation, age or dispersion hardening. This is a heat treatment mechanism important in yielding strength for malleable materials like alloys of magnesium, nickel, stainless steel, titanium and magnesium. Precipitation in solid materials is possible and produces varying sizes of particles with different properties. With the aging process, alloys are stored in high temperatures for a couple of hours to allow precipitation.

Case hardening. This is commonly applied to low carbon steel transformed into a thinner yet harder layer. It is often used in pattern welding or other similar processes.

The amazing part of hardening alloys and crystals is the fact that though a thinner output is produced, the material

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