Impact of short range ordering on the anomalous four-stage strain hardening behavior of low solid-solution hardening Ni–Cr alloys

The effect of short range ordering (SRO) on the strain hardening behavior of low solid-solution hardening Ni–Cr alloys with high stacking fault energies (SFEs) was systematically investigated under uniaxial compression to a high true strain εt of 0.9 at room temperature. An unexpected four-stage (including Stages A, B, C and D) changing law in strain hardening rate was revealed, which is completely different from the case of conventional high-SFE alloys whose strain hardening rate just monotonously declines as the strain increases. Observations on the deformation microstructures strongly demonstrate that the recovery of strain hardening rate in Ni–Cr alloys (Cr ≥ 20 at.%) at Stages B (0.11