Effect of carbon and nitrogen on the Hall-Petch coefficient of ferritic iron (Review on the Hall-Petch relation in ferritic iron)

Grain size dependence of yield strength was reviewed for polycrystalline ferritic iron and low carbon steel. Yielding of polycrystalline low carbon steels was characterized by a clear yield point (upper yield point) and such a yielding behavior is taken over to ultra fine grained steel with the grain size below 1μm. Yield strength (σ_y) of polycrystalline low carbon steels obeys the Hall-Petch relation: σ_y[MPa]=100+600xd[μm] ^-1/2 . The Hall-Petch coefficient ky is around 600 MPa ·μm^1/2 for the commercial low carbon steels but it is lowered to about 100 MPa ·μm^1/2 for interstitial fee steel. Besides, it is known in industrial pure iron (Fe-30ppmC) that ky increases with aging at 363K. The value of ky is also increases with increasing the amount of solute carbon content. The ky is enlarged from 100 MPa·μ m ^1/2 to 550 MPa·μm^1/2 by adding 60ppm of solute carbon and then levels off at around 600 MPa·μm^1/2 in the carbon concentration region above 60ppm. On the other hand, nitrogen hardly influences the ky value. Difference between C and N in the contribution to ky is probably due to the difference in grain boundary segregation behavior. Macroscopic yielding of polycrystalline ferritic iron is reasonably explained by the Hall-Petch model considering dislocation pile-up against grain boundary and dislocation emission from the grain boundary where stress concentration has been generated by piled up dislocations. It is seemed that the segregated carbon stabilized the dislocation emission site at grain boundary and this leads to the increase in ky.