Precipitation hardening

The topic of precipitation hardening is critically reviewed, emphasizing the influence of precipitates on the CRSS or yield strength of aged alloys. Recent progress in understanding the statistics of dislocation-precipitate interactions is highlighted. It is shown that Pythagorean superposition for strengthening by random mixtures of localized obstacles of different strengths is rigorously obeyed in the limit of very weak obstacles; this had been known previously as a result of computer simulation experiments. Some experimental data are discussed in light of this prediction. All of the currently viable mechanisms of precipitation hardening are reviewed. It is demonstrated that all versions of the theory of coherency hardening are woefully inadequate, while the theory of order hardening is capable of accurately predicting the contribution of γ′ precipitates to the CRSS of aged Ni-Al alloys. It is also convincingly shown that a new theory based on computer simulation experiments of the motion of dislocations through arrays of obstacles having a finite range of interaction cannot explain these same data, and is of doubtful validity in other instances for which its success has been proclaimed. A new theory of hardening by spinodal decomposition is proposed. It is based on the statistics of interaction between dislocations and diffuse attractive obstacles, and is shown to be in very good quantitative agreement with much of the limited data available. Some of the problems that remain to be addressed and solved are discussed.