Dislocations

This chapter explains what dislocations are and shows how and why they are so closely related to the properties of metallic materials and the mechanisms commonly used to control the yield strengthYield strength and ductilityDuctility. While the main text in the book can be read independently of this chapter, reading this chapter will enable a deeper understanding of the mechanisms which deliberately exploit the relationship between microstructure and materials properties of metallic materials. The Hall–Petch equation is used to quantify the effect of grain size on yield strength. The different impacts of hot and cold working on material properties are explained in terms of dislocation generation and removal.