Dislocations – A Brief
introduction
Line defects
What are dislocations?
- They are line defects which arise during crystal growth or
as a result of mechanical processing of the material.
Why dislocations are important?
- Explains why the strength of “real” crystalline materials is
much less than the theoretical value
- Movement of dislocations (also called “Slip”) is the
mechanism of plastic deformation of crystals (Ductile vs
Brittle behavior).
(Shear direction is shown by the blue arrow)
Dislocation is a boundary
between the slipped and the
unslipped parts of the crystal
lying over a slip plane
Slipped Unslipped
part part
of the of the
crystal crystal
(Shear direction is shown by the blue arrow)
Screw dislocation: Tracing the spiral
Dislocation-line
direction
Dislocation line
Dislocation line
Motion of a
screw
dislocation
leading to a
step of b
Note: Schematic diagrams
Movement of a screw dislocation
Dislocation-line
(shown in bold)
Dislocation line moves perpendicular to the shear
direction on continued application of shear stress.
(See previous slide)
A dislocation has associated with it two vectors:
t A unit tangent vector along the dislocation line
b The Burgers vector
Edge dislocation
Direction of tt vector
dislocation line vector
Direction of b
b vector
A dislocation has associated with it two vectors:
t A unit tangent vector along the dislocation line
b The Burgers vector
b is always same as the shear direction
In general, b is the close packed direction of the lattice
(Example, b = a/2 [111] in BCC and a/2 [110] in FCC)
b is perpendicular to t in edge dislocation
b is parallel to t in screw dislocation
Burgers Vector
Edge dislocation
Crystal with edge dislocation
Perfect crystal
RHFS:
Right Hand Finish to Start
convention
Edge Screw
Burger’s circuit in screw dislocations
t
Screw
b || dislocation line.
Positive or negative screw dislocation?
1. Choose arbitrary direction for t
2. Draw burger’s circuit clockwise if t is pointing inwards, and anticlockwise if outwards
3. Positive screw dislocation if t and b are parallel
Negative screw dislocation if t and b are antiparallel.
Direction and magnitude of slip is characterized by the Burgers vector
b of the dislocation
The Burgers vector b is determined by the Burgers Circuit
Right hand screw (finish to start) convention is used for determining
the direction of the Burgers vector
b must connect one lattice position to another
Dislocations tend to have as small a Burgers vector as possible
Compressive stress
field
Tensile stress
field
The edge dislocation has compressive stress field above and tensile
stress field below the slip plane
Dislocations are non-equilibrium defects and would leave the crystal
if given an opportunity
Positive edge dislocation
Negative edge dislocation
ATTRACTION Can come together and cancel
one another
REPULSION
Slip plane
Screw dislocation
Mixed dislocations
b t
b
Pure screw Pure Edge
DISLOCATIONS
EDGE MIXED SCREW
Usually dislocations have a mixed character and Edge and Screw
dislocations are the ideal extremes
Movement of an edge dislocation
Caterpillar analogy
Dislocation line moves parallel to burger’s vector
on continued application of shear stress
Carpet analogy
Carpet
Pull
Dislocations tend to have as small a Burgers vector as possible
Climb of Edge Dislocation
Positive climb Negative climb
Screw dislocation: Cross Slip
The figures below show the cross slip of a screw dislocation line from Slip Plane-1 (SP1)
to Slip plane-2 (SP2).
This may occur if the dislocation is pinned in slip plane-1.
The dislocation is shown cross-slipping from the slip plane 1 to slip plane 2
Staircase-like steps resulting from cross slip of screw dislocations
Where can a dislocation line end?
Dislocation line cannot end inside the crystal (abruptly)
The dislocation line:
Ends on a free surface of the crystal
Closes on itself to form a loop
Ends in a node
A node is the intersection point of more than two dislocations
The vectoral sum of the Burgers vectors of dislocations meeting at a
node = 0
