Basic aspects of the co-deformation of bcc/fcc materials

Materials consisting of a hard phase embedded within a softer, ductile matrix represent an industrially important class of materials. Recent work has shown that in many cases such two-phase materials can be co-deformed to produce alloys with strengths far surpassing those that would be predicted from a simple ‘rule of mixtures’ estimate. Alloys comprising a bcc phase embedded within an fcc matrix are representative of materials exhibiting this type of behaviour and may be considered as excellent model systems for the study of the co-deformation process. Here, the important processes associated with co-deformation will be reviewed and new results from the co-deformation of a Cu–Cr and a Ni–W alloy will be described.