Size effects and temperature dependence on strain-hardening mechanisms in some face centered cubic materials

• The influence of temperature on the size effects in some fcc polycrystals is reported.
• High stacking fault energy polycrystals always behave differently than multicrystals.
• Work hardening of low stacking fault energy polycrystals tends toward multicrystals one.
• Surface effects and grain size influence can be successfully dissociated.
• Formability of thin parts can be optimized by appropriate strain paths and temperature.

The mechanical behavior of face centered cubic metals is deeply affected when specimen dimensions decrease from a few millimeters to a few micrometers. At room temperature, a critical thickness (t) to grain size (d) ratio (t/d)c was previously highlighted, under which the softening of mechanical properties became very pronounced both in terms of Hall–Petch relation and work hardening mechanisms. In this work, new experimental results are provided concerning the influence of temperature on this size effect for copper, nickel and Ni–20 wt.%Cr, representative of a wide range of deformation mechanisms (i.e. dislocation slip character). It is shown that multicrystalline samples (t/d < (t/d)c) are not deeply affected by an increase in temperature, independently of the planar or wavy character of dislocation glide. For pronounced wavy slip character metals, surface effects in polycrystals (t/d > (t/d)c) are not significant enough to reduce the gap between polycrystal and multicrystal mechanical behavior when the temperature increases. However, a transition from wavy slip to planar glide mechanisms induces a modification of the polycrystalline behavior which tends toward multicrystalline one with a moderate increase in temperature. This work demonstrates that surface effects and grain size influence can be successfully disassociated for the three studied materials using an analysis supported by the Kocks–Mecking formalism. All these results are supported by microscopic investigations of dislocation substructures and compared to numerical simulations using a strain gradient plasticity model.