Yield strength anomaly

In materials science, yield strength anomaly is the phenomenon of a material's yield strength (that is, the stress necessary to initiate plastic yielding) increasing as temperature increases; for the majority of materials, the opposite is true. In metals without the yield strength anomaly, yield strength decreases as a result of the thermal activation of dislocation motion, resulting in easier plastic deformation at higher temperatures.

In some cases, a yield strength anomaly refers to a decrease in the ductility of a material with increasing temperature, which is also opposite the trend in the majority of materials. Anomalies in ductility can be more clear, as an anomalous effect on yield strength can be obscured by its typical decrease with temperature. In concert with yield strength or ductility anomalies, some materials demonstrate extrema in other temperature dependent properties, such as a minimum in ultrasonic damping, or a maximum in electrical conductivity.

The yield strength anomaly in β-brass was one of the earliest discoveries such a phenomenon, and several other ordered intermetallic alloys demonstrate this effect. Precipitation-hardened superalloys exhibit a yield strength anomaly over a considerable temperature range. For these materials, the yield strength shows little variation between room temperature and several hundred degrees Celsius. Eventually, a maximum yield strength is reached. For even higher temperatures, the yield strength decreases and, eventually, drops to zero when reaching the melting temperature, where the solid material transforms into a liquid.