Dispersion strengthening

What is dispersion strengthening?

Dispersion strengthening is a process carried out to improve the properties of metals by adding additional metallic material to create an alloy.

The addition of an alloying metal to a base metal can increase the strength, resistivity to corrosion and enable materials to operate at higher temperatures.

This new material is referred to as second phase when the alloying metal is added in an amount sufficient to allow the base material to reach its solubility limit, so any additional alloying metal becomes insoluble.

A heterogenous microstructure is then created consisting of two or more different types of crystals of the different phases, combined in different quantities

How is it done?

The insoluble, second phase particles are introduced to the base metal.

In high strength engineering materials, second phase materials are the most potent strengthening agent. Common examples include are added to Iron-base, aluminium, nickel, titanium alloys.