3. Orthogonal loading: here, monotonic (pre-)loading in a given direction is followed by
monotonic loading in a direction perpendicular to the original direction. For example,
this could be a change from tension to shear loading. Such a change may occur continuously
in the inelastic range of the material, or be affected by release and then reloading
in the orthogonal direction. In either case, the result is a change in strain type in the
material, e.g., from extension to shear. As shown in Fig. 1 (right) for DC06, such loading
results in an increase of the yield stress after the loading-path change, something
known as cross-hardening. This behavior can be explained by the fact that the (oriented
planar) dislocation structures (e.g., walls) which develop during pre-loading in a given
direction act as obstacles to slip on systems activated in the orthogonal direction after
the change of loading direction. Note in Fig. 1 (right) the softening observed at the
beginning of the second stage. This is attributed to deformation localization in theso-called microbands accompanying the breakdown of dislocation structures associated
with latent slip systems. In addition, the experiments also show that this softening
becomes more pronounced as the level of pre-strain increases. After softening, further
hardening takes place due to the formation of new dislocation structures.