Unified Framework for Dislocation-Based Defect Energetics

Plastic deformation in polycrystals is governed by the interplay between intra-granular slip and grain boundary-mediated plasticity. However, while the role played by bulk dislocations is relatively well-understood, the contribution of grain boundaries (GBs) has only recently begun to be studied. GB plasticity is known to play a key role along with bulk plasticity under a wide range of conditions, such as dynamic recovery, superplasticity, severe plastic deformation , etc., a...

A generalized disclination (g.disclination) theory [AF15] has been recently introduced that goes beyond treating standard translational and rotational Volterra defects in a continuously distributed defects approach; it is capable of treating the kinematics and dynamics of terminating lines of elastic strain and rotation discontinuities. In this work, a numerical method is developed to solve for the stress and distortion fields of g.disclination systems. Problems of small and ...

Although continuum theory has been widely used to describe the long-range elastic behavior of dislocations, it is limited in its ability to describe mechanical behaviors that occur near dislocation cores. This limit of the continuum theory mainly stems from the discrete nature of the core region, which induces a drag force on the dislocation core during glide. Depending on external conditions, different drag mechanisms are activated that govern the dynamics of dislocations in...

In classical elasticity theory the stress-field of a dislocation is characterized by a $1/r$-type singularity. When such a dislocation is considered together with an Allen-Cahn-type phase-field description for microstructure evolution this leads to singular driving forces for the order parameter, resulting in non-physical (and discretization-dependent) predictions for the interaction between dislocations and phase-, twin- or grain-boundaries. We introduce a framework based on...

The dynamics and thermodynamics of dislocated crystals are studied within the framework of the nonlinear theory of elastic and plastic deformations.

Point defects are ubiquitous in two dimensional crystals and play a fundamental role in determining their mechanical and thermodynamical properties. When crystals are formed on a curved background, finite length grain boundaries (scars) are generally needed to stabilize the crystal. We provide a continuum elasticity analysis of defect dynamics in curved crystals. By exploiting the fact that any point defect can be obtained as an appropriate combination of disclinations, we pr...

We present a field formulation for defects that draws from the classical representation of the cores as force dipoles. We write these dipoles as singular distributions. Exploiting the key insight that the variational setting is the only appropriate one for the theory of distributions, we arrive at universally applicable weak forms for defects in nonlinear elasticity. Remarkably, the standard, Galerkin finite element method yields numerical solutions for the elastic fields of ...

The thermodynamic theory of dislocation/grain boundary interaction, including dislocation pile-up against, absorption by, and transfer through the grain boundary, is developed for nonuniform plastic deformations in polycrystals. The case study is carried out on the boundary conditions affecting work hardening of a bicrystal subjected to plane constrained shear for three types of grain boundaries: (i) impermeable hard grain boundary, (ii) grain boundary that allows dislocation...

Grain boundaries (GBs) are central defects for describing polycrystalline materials, and playing major role in a wide-range of physical properties of polycrystals. Control over GB kinetics provides effective means to tailor polycrystal properties through material processing. While many approaches describe different GB kinetic phenomena, this review provides a unifying concept for a wide range of GB kinetic behavior. Our approach rests on a disconnection description of GB kine...

This chapter reviews the different methodological aspects of the ab ini-tio modeling of dislocations. Such simulations are now frequently used to study the dislocation core, i.e. the region in the immediate vicinity of the line defect where the crystal is so strongly distorted that an atomic description is needed. This core region controls some dislocation fundamental properties, like their ability to glide in different crystallographic planes. Ab initio calculations based on...