Effects of grain size on dislocation organization and internal stresses developed under tensile loading in fcc metals

The relationship between deformation and dislocation properties has been studied for pure polycrystalline nickel and austenitic stainless steel AISI 316L in stage III. Special care was taken to study statistically the effects of the grain size and grain orientation on dislocation densities and distribution. It is shown that the nature of dislocation cells depends on grain size and crystallographic orientation. The dimensional parameters, which depend on grain size, i.e. the inter-boundary spacing (λ) and boundary thickness (e), define three domains of crystallographic orientation and depend on the grain size. Scaling hypotheses reveal two physical mechanisms which, at this level of plastic strain, are correlated to a specific value of the noise, associated with distribution functions. Similarities between structural parameters and dislocation densities in each phase (walls and inter-walls spacing) are identified and discussed in terms of kinetic equations describing dislocation density evolution and fluctuations of certain physical parameters. This similarity provides physical signification of the scaling distribution obtained on λ and e in terms of a stochastic approach to dislocation distribution. The origin of Hall–Petch behaviour observed at large strain is interpreted in terms of an interaction between inter- and intra-granular long-range internal stresses, which depends on grain size. We conclude that, at high strain, the Hall–Petch phenomenological relationship is a consequence of plastic strain history and strain gradient in grains. From this last point, a length scale arises naturally, which depends on stacking fault energy.