Determination of the critical resolved shear stress and the friction stress in austenitic stainless steels by compression of pillars extracted from single grains

The friction stress resulting from alloying elements in industrial alloys is an important strengthening mechanism. Since the preparation of single crystal from industrial material is difficult, no direct measurement of this quantity has been reported in literature. In this paper we present a new experimental method for the measurement of the Critical Resolved Shear Stress (CRSS) of single crystals cut from individual grains. It is shown that the size of the single crystal must be large enough to avoid size effects. Using transmission electron microscopy the measurement of the dislocation density allows for the decomposition of the CRSS into forest hardening and friction components. The friction stress is found to be the principal component of the materials strength. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.