Effect of plastic deformations and heat treatment on the behavior of the coercive force under load

Based on the measurements of the dependences of the coercive force of ferromagnetic steels on elastic tensile stresses, its minimum values and the positions of these minima have been found. Using the method of thermal neutron scattering, it has been experimentally proved that the stresses at which the coercive force is minimum is equal to the average value of the residual body stresses (internal stresses of the first kind). The latter were varied over wide limits with the aid of either a preliminary tensile plastic deformation to different degrees (steel St3) or using different tempering regimes after quenching (steel U8). In the first case, large residual compressive stresses arise in a significant part of grains along the direction of loading, which are caused by the anisotropy of Young’s modulus of iron. As a result of compensating these stresses by external tensile stresses, there appears a minimum of the coercive force, whose value is determined by an increase in the dislocation density at the stage of plastic deformation.