Dislocations
Dislocations
Dislocations
What are dislocations ? They are line defects which arise during
crystal growth or as a result of mechanical deformation of a
crystal. (106 to 107 in best crystals (Si, Ge) and upto 1016 per cm2)
Why dislocations are important :
Explain why the strength of real crystalline materials is
much less (102 to 103 times) than the theoretical value.
Motion of dislocations is the mechanism at the origin of plastic
deformation of crystals (ductile vs. brittle behavior).
Allows some cohesion between crystals of different
orientations (low angle grain boundaries are arrays of
dislocations).
Explains a number of crystal-crystal transitions.
Mixed Dislocation
Mixed Dislocation
S b F
Perfect Crystal
Further Information...
For an edge dislocation the Burgers vector is orthogonal to the
dislocation line. For a screw dislocation, the Burgers vector is
parallel to the dislocation line.
The elastic strain energy associated with the dislocation is
proportional to the square of the Burgers vector.
For metallic materials, the Burgers vector for a dislocation will
point in a closed-packed crystallographic direction and will be of
magnitude equal to the interatomic spacing.
A
C
For BCC, the most densely packed planes are the {110} planes.
Note that these planes are not closed-packed (lower density than
that of (111) in FCC).
BCC
Coordination Number
8 instead of 12
Plastic deformation of metals occurs by sliding of adjacent closedpacked or densely-packed planes (slip planes). In FCC, the slip
planes are (111) and the slip directions are <110>. In HCP, the slip
planes are (0001) and the slip direction is <1120>. In BCC the slip
planes are (110), (112) and (123), the slip direction is only the body
diagonal <111>. (Slip plane = glide plane = plane containing b and
dislocation line). Deformation of a crystal occurs through motion of
dislocations