Stain hardening (also referred to as work hardening or cold working) dates back

to the Bronze
Age and is perhaps the first widely used strengthening mechanism for metals. Art
isans
hammered and bent metals to desired shapes and achieved superior strength in the
process.
Typical cold-worked commercial products that find used today include cold-drawn
piano wire
and cold-rolled sheet metal. Strain hardening results from a dramatic increases
in the number of
dislocation-dislocation interactions and which reduces dislocation mobility. As
a result, larger
stresses must be applied in order that additional deformation deformation may ta
ke place. It is
interesting to note that the strength of a metal approaches extremely high level
s when there are
either no dislocations present (recall Equation) or when the number of dislocati
on is extremely
high (>10^3/cm^2); low strength levels correspond to the presence of moderate nu
mbers of
dislocation (? 103
105/cm2) (Figure).
To characterize more clearly the strain
hardening behavior of metal crystals, it
is helpful
to examine the stress-strain response of single crystals. From Figure. the
Shear stress-strain curve for single crystal revealing elastic behavior when T<T
crss and
Stage I,II,III plastic response when T > Tcrss. , I II III ? ? ? measure the str
ain hardening rate in each
region