ABSTRACT
There are four methods commonly used to increase the strength of metallic materials:
1. Solution hardening (alloying) 2. Grain size control 3. Strain hardening (cold work) 4. Heat treatment
The first two methods give moderate increases in yield strength, in the range of 5-30 percent, whereas the last two methods give much larger increases in strength, such as 50-300 percent increase in yield strength. Each of the methods will be presented in detail, with an emphasis on the last two methods.
