Modeling of structural hardening in oxide dispersion-strengthened (ODS) ferritic alloys

Based on a rather simple macroscopic and statistical model, experimentally observed variations of yield stress at room temperature in various ODS alloys were theoretically reproduced. For the first time, yield stress values of ODS steels were calculated by taking into account: (1) two interaction mechanisms between dislocations and nanoprecipitates (shearing or bypassing, simultaneously, depending on the particle size); and (2) the whole, possibly multimodal, nanoparticle distributions experimentally determined by SANS. The relative importances of the various strengthening mechanisms can be easily deduced from these calculations.