A study of directionality of latent hardening behavior in aluminium single crystals

By defining the yield stress in a latent hardening test as the first deviation from the elastic straight line, the yielding and hardening behavior on a latent system in the positive and negative slip direction was studied in aluminium single crystals. It is shown that the yield stresses on both the positive and negative latent systems are about equal to or a little lower than the maximum resolved shear stress in the primary test, but much higher than that of the active system. The influence of relative orientation and prestrain on latent hardening and initial work-hardening in the secondary test was also investigated, and it was found that there is a considerable effect on initial work-hardening, but none on latent hardening. With reasonable approximation, a hardening rule for single crystal could be proposed from the experimental results, that is, except for the yield stress on the system negative to the active system that is very low, hardening on the other systems is nearly the same as self-hardening.