Dependence of strength, elongation, and toughness on grain size in metallic structural materials

Abstract

The dependence of yield strength, uniform elongation, and toughness on grain size in metallic structural materials was discussed. The toughness is defined as the product of yield strength and uniform elongation. The yield strength versus grain size can be well described by the Hall-Petch relation; however, the uniform elongation versus grain size is not well understood yet. A simple model involving the densities of geometrically necessary dislocations and statistically stored dislocations was proposed to estimate the uniform elongation versus grain size. Existing data for low carbon steels and aluminum indicate that, in the grain size less than 1μm, the materials usually exhibit high strength and low uniform elongation and, in the grain size greater than 10μm, the materials usually exhibit low strength and high elongation; in either case the toughness is low. However, in the grain size of several micrometers, the toughness is the highest. It is suggested that we should pay more attention to develop the metallic materials with grain size of several micrometers for structural applications.