Masato Hiratani

Dislocation multi-junctions and strain hardening

At the microscopic scale, the strength of a crystal derives from the motion, multiplication and interaction of distinctive line defects called dislocations. First proposed theoretically in 1934 (refs 1–3) to explain low magnitudes of crystal strength observed experimentally, the existence of dislocations was confirmed two decades later. Much of the research in dislocation physics has since focused on dislocation interactions and their role in strain hardening, a common phenomenon in which continued deformation increases a crystals strength. The existing theory relates strain hardening to pair-wise dislocation reactions in which two intersecting dislocations form junctions that tie the dislocations together. Here we report that interactions among three dislocations result in the formation of unusual elements of dislocation network topology, termed ‘multi-junctions’. We first predict the existence of multi-junctions using dislocation dynamics and atomistic simulations and then confirm their existence by transmission electron microscopy experiments in single-crystal molybdenum. In large-scale dislocation dynamics simulations, multi-junctions present very strong, nearly indestructible, obstacles to dislocation motion and furnish new sources for dislocation multiplication, thereby playing an essential role in the evolution of dislocation microstructure and strength of deforming crystals. Simulation analyses conclude that multi-junctions are responsible for the strong orientation dependence of strain hardening in body-centred cubic crystals.

Scalable Line Dynamics in ParaDiS

We describe an innovative highly parallel application program, ParaDiS, which computes the plastic strength of materials by tracing the evolution of dislocation lines over time. We discuss the issues of scaling the code to tens of thousands of processors, and present early scaling results of the code run on a prototype of the BlueGene/L supercomputer being developed by IBM in partnership with the US DOE’s ASC program.

Massively-Parallel Dislocation Dynamics Simulations

Prediction of the plastic strength of single crystals based on the collective dynamics of dislocations has been a challenge for computational materials science for a number of years. The difficulty lies in the inability of the existing dislocation dynamics (DD) codes to handle a sufficiently large number of dislocation lines, in order to be statistically representative and to reproduce experimentally observed microstructures. A new massively-parallel DD code is developed that is capable of modeling million-dislocation systems by employing thousands of processors. We discuss the general aspects of this code that make such large scale simulations possible, as well as a few initial simulation results.

Stochastic Dislocation Dynamics for Dislocation-Defects Interaction: A Multiscale Modeling Approach

A stochastic dislocation dynamics (SDD) model is developed to investigate dislocation elide through dispersal obstacles. The model accounts for: 1) the dynamics of the flight process between successive meta-stable dislocations under various dray mechanism using discrete dislocation dynamics, and 2) thermal activation processes for meta-stable pinned dislocations using a stochastic force. The integration of the two processes allows one to examine the transient regime of dislocation motion between obstacle-controlled motion and drag-controlled motion. Result pertaining to the stress-strain rate behavior in copper are obtained. The stress and temperature dependence of the average dislocation velocity show obstacle-controlled region below the critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) and drag controlled region above the CRSS, which is in good qualitative agreement with experimental data. In the transient region right below the CRSS, negative temperature sensitivity is observed due to the competition between the drag effects in dislocation flight process and thermal activation process.

Dynamical Effects on Dislocation Glide through Weak Obstacles

Underdamped dislocation motion through local pinning obstacles is studied computationally using a stochastic dislocation dynamics scheme. The global dislocation velocity is observed to be non-linearly stress dependent. Strongly non-Arrhenius dynamics are found at a higher stress range. The statistical analysis indicates that the correlation of the local dislocation kinetic energy is extended and exceeds the average obstacle spacing as temperature decreases, which can lead to the inertial dislocation bypass of the obstacles.