Precipitation of Carbon and Nitrogen in Cold-Worked Alpha-Iron

Abstract

The strain-induced precipitation of carbon and nitrogen from supersaturated solution in alpha-iron is shown to be in agreement with a dislocation mechanism and estimates of the dislocation density required to produce the observed precipitation rates are in agreement with dislocation theory. The activation energies involved in the process are found to be 20,000 cal/mole for carbon and 17,200 for nitrogen, in agreement with published data for the activation energies of diffusion of the two solutes.