The Solid Solution Hardening of Steel by Silicon

Abstract

Previous workers, studying coarse grained, low carbon steels, have reported that although silicon additions give rise to useful increases in yield stress the effect diminishes with decreasing ferrite grain size. This trend has been confirmed for finer grained, structural steels and the practical significance assessed. The results are discussed using a model in which silicon not only gives rise to solid solution hardening but also diffuses to the ferrite grain boundaries and promotes the easier generation of dislocations from these sites.