A Review of the Stages of Work Hardening

Stages of work hardening are reviewed with emphasis on links between each stage. Simple quantitative descriptions are given for each stage. Similarities between stage I, easy glide, and stage IV, large strain hardening, are pointed out both in terms of magnitude of the hardening rate and of the underlying mechanism of dislocation debris accumulation. Stage II is described as an athermal hardening stage that occurs when statistical variations in the dislocation ``forest`` lead to geometrical storage of dislocations. The steadily decreasing hardening rate observed in stage III is characterized by the increasing rate of loss of dislocation density due to dynamic recovery. Stage III appears to have an asymptote to a saturation stress which is determined by the characteristics of the dislocation tangles, or cell walls. The imperfect nature of the dynamic recovery process, however, leads to the accumulation of dislocation debris and this, by analogy with stage 1, causes the apparent saturation stress to rise, thus causing stage IV.