STRENGTHENING CAUSED BY POWER-LAW CREEP DEFORMATION OF DISPERSED PARTICLES IN AN ELASTIC MATRIX

The interaction energy is approximated between an edge dislocation and a particle deformable by power law creep in an elastic matrix. The st ress required to overcome the interaction energy barrier is found to b e greater than the Orowan stress, and the dislocation bulges to escape the particle. If the ratio of the shear modulus of the matrix to the viscosity of the particle (mu t(m)/sigma(0)) is large, the stress requ ired to climb over the particle is larger than the Orowan stress and t he dilocation bulges before it climbs. It is concluded that even if th e particle is soft enough to exhibit creep, the strengthening of alloy s can be achieved by an Orowan mechanism. The critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) of Cu-B2O3, obtained experimentally by Onaka et al. [11] , agrees closely with that obtained in our analysis. This supports our analysis that the strength of Cu-B2O3 alloy at high temperature may b e accounted for by the Orowan mechanism and the attraction between a d islocation and viscous particles. The energy and the force to overcome the energy barrier increases significantly with decrease of m, the st rain rate exponent associated with the power law creep particle. It is found through analysis that for m < 1.0 and for certain values of mu t(m)/sigma(0) > 1, the particle repulses the dislocation, while for m = 1.0 and for all values of mu t(m)/sigma(0) > 1, the particle attract s the dislocation, which is the expected interaction between an elasti c particle and a dislocation in an elastic matrix.