It is well established that the deformation of metallic materials is a thermally activated process which depends on temperature, time and strain rate. The major activation parameters are the activation volume, [Delta]V, the activation enthalpy, [Delta]H, and the Gibbs activation free energy, [Delta]G. All these parameters are used to characterize the dislocation mechanisms controlling the deformation processes. Because of the experimental difficulties, except for the study of Gibbs, very few other investigators have attempted to determine the activation volume for deformation at elevated temperatures even though this is of fundamental interest for many applications in engineering such as, in the hot working of metals and alloys. For instance, one class of metallic material, which is used in abundance for many applications, is Nb High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) steel produced by controlled rolling. Nevertheless, no activation volume data for deformation have so far been available for these materials. In this study a stress relaxation technique has been used to determine the activation volume and the activation energy terms for plane strain hot compression testing for Nb HSLA steels for a range of deformation conditions.
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