Elementary Dislocation Theory JOHANNES WEERTMAN NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY and JULIA R. WEERTMAN THE MACMILLAN COMPANY COLLIER-MAOMILLAN LIMITED, LONDONTo Julia and Bruce © coryricur, JOHANNES WEERTMAN, 1964 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, clectronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher, ‘Sixth Printing, 1971 rary of Congress catalog card number: 64-23889 THe MAcMILLAN Company 866 Tump Avenue, New York, New York 10022 CoLtrer-MAcMILtan CANADA, Lrp., Toronto Printed in the United States of AmericaMacmillan Series in Materials Science Editors: morris x. FINE JOHANNES WEERTMAN JULIA R. WEERTMAN Fine, Morris E.: Introduction to Phase Transformations in Condensed Systems Wayman, C. M.: Introduction to the Crystallography of Martensitic Transformations Weertman, Johannes and Weertman, Julia R.: Elementary Dislocation TheoryMacmillan Series in Materials Science Elementary Dislocation TheoryPreface This book was written to be used in a one-semester or one-quarter course on dislocation theory at the advanced undergraduate level (junior or senior year). This book grew out of experience gained in teaching such course at Northwestern University. The material in our text covers mainly the basic, fundamental. properties of disloca- tionsincrystals. Noattempt has been made to treat the application of dislocations to theories of work hardening, creep, internal friction, etc. ‘The material in the text is that which must be mastered by any student before he can attempt to study and understand the various “applied” dislocation theories which have been developed to explain the multi- tude of structure sensitive phenomena of crystals. It is difficult in a one-quarter or one-semester course to teach, except in a very super- ficial way, both basic and applied dislocation theory. It was for this reason that, we have attempted here to develop only the fundamentals of dislocation theory. This more modest coverage of the field of dis- location theory has the compensating advantage that the fundamental properties of dislocations can be examined in sufficient detail to give the student a good mastery of the subject. Since advanced engineering and science students usually have studied calculus, vector analysis, and elementary thermodynamics we have assumed a knowledge of these subjects on the part of the student. No other special knowledge is presumed. For example, the treatment of the stress-strain field of the dislocation is preceded in the text by a treatment: of elasticity theory, a topic to which thé average student has had very limited exposure. A large number of problems are given in this text. ‘The student is encouraged to work out as many ofthese as he can, Dislocation theory vVI ELEMENTARY DISLOCATION THEORY is that type of subject which can be understood thoroughly only after contemplation of many problems. We aro indebted to Dr. W. J. McG. Tegart for reading the manu- script of this book.®CONTENTS Pole Mechanism Twinning Emissary Dislocations Stacking Fault Tetrahedron Peierls Stress Simplified Calculation of the Peierls Stress of a Screw Dislocation Self-Energy Peierls Force cuarTeR 6. Image Forces, Interactions with Point Defects and Other Topics Image Forces Image Dislocation Image Force Near an Interface Separating Material of Different Elastic Constants Point Defect Interactions—Cottrell-Pinning Suzuki or Chemical Interaction “Other Interactions of Alloying Atoms and Dislocations Stress Induced Order (Schoeck-Snoek Effect) Long-Range Order Short-Range Order and Clustering Drift of Pinned Dislocations at High Temperatures and Low Stresses Small Angle Grain Boundaries Symmetric Tilt Boundary Energy of a Simple Tilt Boundary Nonsymmetric Tilt Boundary General Tilt Boundary Symmetric Twist Boundary Nonsymmetric Twist Boundary General Small Angle Boundary Curvature of a Crystal Lattice Origin of Dislocations Thermal Stresses Impurity Atoms Vacancy and Interstitial Collapse Screw Dislocation Mechanism Whiskers APPENDIX INDEX 139 141 146 147 149 153 156 168 168. 168 170 173 178 181 181 184 184 187 187 189 189 192 195 195 195 198 198 198 199 201 209 211ey eee eet ae I. Description of a Dislocation Discovery of the Dislocation The dislocation is an object worthy of study. Its existence permits metals to be plastically deformed with. éase, a circumstance upon which our modern technology is so dependent, .‘The dislocation has served man ever since he first developed metal implements. The dislocation also permits nonmetallic crystalline materials to be plastically de- formed. In fact at suitable temperatures a nonmetallic crystalline material usually can be deformed as easily is a piece of metal. Thus the dislocation plays a commanding role in those grandest of all deformations on earth: the upheavals that have produced the moun- tain ranges and the continents themselves, Dislocations within grains of ice permit high mountains and high-latitude land masses to rid themselves, through the plastic flow of glaciers and ice sheets, of their ever-accumulating blanket of snow. The ease with which metals can be deformed was the crucial exper- imental observation that lead to the discovery of the dislocation, While this property was known to prehistoric man, the fact that it is a very unusual property was not fully realized until many millennia later. By the second decade of this century the atomistic and periodic nature of crystalline substances was fully established through the use of x-rays. Once it was known that orystals are made up of a periodic array of atoms, the magnitude of the shear stress required to produce plastic deformation in a crystal could be calculated easily. Consider Figure 1-1. Part (a) shows two-dimensional, close-packed layers of atoms. One atom in each layer is drawn solid so that the motion 1ELEMENTARY DISLOCATION THEORY ——— (a) Shear displacement in a perfect lattice. Ficore 1-1.e ~+~—___.. a ne ge DESCRIPTION OF A DISLOCATION 3 through (a) and (b) to (c) can be followed more easily. In (b) a shear Stress large enough to force each horizontal layer of atoms up and over the layer beneath it is applied. Finally, in (©) the atoms are brought to positions equivalent to those in (a). If the shear stress is removed in (0), there is no reason for the atoms to retum to their positions in (a). The deformation is permanent; it is a plastic deformation which has not altered the crystalline nature of the lattice, The lattice of Figure 1-1 becomes unstable when it approaches the Position ‘shown in (b). Thus the shear stress required to bring the lattice to this state is the stress at which Permanent, or plastic defor. mation becomes possible. ‘This shear stress is the theoretical shear strength of the crystal. Its magnitude can be estimated rolighly by the angle shown. It is measured in radians (360° — Sx radians). If u is the shear modulus of the orystal, the theoretical shear strength is of the order of 16, or approximately 4/3. (A brief review of elas. about 3 x 1011 dynes /om? (108 dynesjom? = 1 bar x 1Kg/om? ~ 14 psi the theoretical strength is of the order of 1011 dynes/em?, The’ the- cretical shear strength of ice, with a modulus of around 3 x 1010 dynes/ cm?, is of the order of 1019 dynes/om®, Yet annealed single crystals of aluminum can be deformed at stresses as low as 3 3108 dynes/om?, and ice in glaciers is known to deform at stress levels as low as 108 dynes/cm®, ‘Therefore a discrepancy of many orders of magnitude can exist between the theoretical and observed shear strengths of crystals. (It should be noted, however, that at relatively low tem- Peratures metal specimens previously subjected to cold-working and4 ELEMENTARY DISLOCATION THEORY deformation. This imperfection is the dislocation, the subject of this book.* Dislocations were first seen in the early fifties by Hedges and Mitchell, who used a decorating technique to make them visible in silver-halide crystals. Dislocations are now commonly observed under the electron microscope by means of the transmission technique. This technique was first used for the study of dislocations in 1956 by Hirsch, Horne, and Whelan and independently by Bollmann. Description of a Dislocation Line ‘The best description of a dislocation is obtained from a study of its formation in the crystalline lattice. Consider Figure 1-2. In the center is the starting material, a perfect, undeformed simple cubic lattice. (A simple cubic lattice is used for the sake of clarity. The only substance known to crystallize in this lattice structure is the metal polonium.) Cut this lattice along any of the planes indicated in the auxiliary cubes. Let the atoms on one side of the out shift in a direction parallel to the cut surface through a distance, relative to the corresponding atoms on the other side, equal to one atom spacing. Then rejoin the atoms on either side of the cut. The new, distorted lattice is shown in the outer figures. The lattice structure itself actually is almost perfect except near the lines AA of the various figures. Tho line imperfections AA in the lattice are dislocation lines. ‘The three types of dislocation lines are shown in Figure 1-2. If the atoms over the cut surface are shifted in a direction perpendicular to the line 4A, an edge dislocation is created in the lattice; if the shift is parallel to 4A, a screw dislocation is produced; if the shift is neither parallel nor perpendicular to AA but rather is at some arbi- trary angle, a dislocation line having the characteristics of both an edge and a screw dislocation is placed into the lattice. This third type is called a mixed dislocation. An edge dislocation also can be made simply by inserting an extra half plane of atoms into the lattice, as shown in Figure 1-3, or by removing a half plane of atoms. The edge dislocation line is the easiest to visualize in the lattice. It coincides with the edge of the extra half plane of atoms. ‘*Actually the concept of the dislocation wes introduced into the continuum elasticity theory in the early 1900's by Volterra and by Timpe.TO =< a W —> " Frcure 1-2, The cre: d é : ” Figur 1-3. Edge dislocation, ew a screw, and a mixed dislocation, a f an edge, ation of6 ELEMENTARY DISLOCATION THEORY é In the process of creating the screw dislocation shown in Figure 1-2, the atom planes pérpendicular to the dislocation line are turned into aspiral ramp. The screw dislocation itself is the pole about which the spiral ramp circles, Figure 1-4 shows these spiraling atomic planes. Ficure 1-4, Screw dislocation. The atom planes are analogous to the floor of a type of modern multi- storied parking garage. In such a garage one drives from street level onto a ramp with a slight upward gradient. By driving continuously on this ramp in a circle about the central pole, one eventually emerges onto the roof of the garage, many stories above street level. Similarly, in Figure 1-4 a very small bug could walk from one side of the crystal to another without ever leaving the atomic plane. The screw dis- location shown in Figure 1-4 is right-handed. A screw dislocation also can be left-handed. . In Figure 1-2 the boundary of the out within the crystal is a straight line. A curved interior boundary could have served just as well. A cut with a circular boundary is shown in Figure 1-6. The rejoining of the atoms on either side of this cut produces a dislocation line in the form of a quarter of a circle. This dislocation line cannot be characterized either as pure edge, pure screw, or as mixed with a fixed proportion of screw and edge character. Where the circular dislocation line emerges from the orystal at point A, it is pure edge in character since here the dislocation line lies perpendicular to the direc- tion in which the atoms on the cut were shifted. Similarly, where the dislocation emerges at point B, it is pure screw in character since here the dislocation lies parallel to the direction of shift. Between~ DESCRIPTION OF A DISLOCATION a ZIT Ficure 1-5. Mixed dislocation with varying edge and screw components, these two points the dislo: cation is mixed, but the proportion of screw and edge character varies continuously with the direction of the dis- location line, A dislocation line can be made in the form of a closed loop rather than as a line that terminates at the erystal surface. Such a loop, the atoms in this plane would look like those shown in (b). Thus8 ‘ELEMENTARY DISLOCATION THEORY (a) (b) (c) Ficure 1-6. both the segments AB and DO are edge dislocations but they are of “opposite sign.” ‘That is, one segment has its extra half plane of atoms above the out and the other has its extra half plane of atoms below the cut surface. If the crystal were sliced along the plane FFFF,DESCRIPTION OF A DISLOCATION 9 the atoms would look as shown in-(c). Dislocation segments BC and AD are sorew dislocations; they also have opposite sign. It is obvious that one segment is a right-handed and the other is a left-handed screw dislocation. The dislocation loop could have been made in any arbitrary shape, The only requirement is that the loop be closed. (It will by loft as interior of a crystal.) If a circular dislocation loop is made by shifting the atoms parallel to the plane of the loop, the characte of each dislocation segment of the loop varies continuously from Pure edge to mixed to screw dislocation, as shown in Figure 1-7. Tt should be mixed Screw mixed direction of shift ane e000 mixed Screw mixed Ficune 1-7. Dislocation loop. noted that segments on opposite sides of the loop are the same type of dislocation but have opposite sign. Prismatic Dislocation Loop In the previous section a dislécation loop was created by making a cut along a plane and then shifting the atoms on either side of the The shift of atoms on each side of the cut surface thus is perpendicular fo the surface. Figure 1-8a illustrates the creation of a eireular die location loop by this method. In Figure 1-8b we see the arrangement10 ELEMENTARY DISLOCATION THEORY FE (a) Froure 1-8. Prismatic dislocation loop. of the atoms on # plane HEHE that slices the crystal in two. The two segments of the dislocation loop that intersect the plane EEEE obviously are pure edge dislocations which are opposite in sign. There is an important difference between the orientations of the edge dis- locations of Figure 1-8b and those in the similar Figure 1-6b. One set of dislocations is rotated 7/2 with respect to the other. If instead of slicing the crystal in two by the plane EEEE we had chosen the plane FFFF, we would have found the arrangement of the atoms to be that shown in Figure 1-8c. It can be seen that the dislocation segments are identical to those in Figure 1-8b. In fact every segment: of the dislocation loop of Figure 1-8 is a pure edge dislocation. This result is in sharp contrast to our observationsDESCRIPTION OF A DISLOCATION i concerning the dislocation loops of Figures 1-6 and 1-7, which have proments varying in character from pure edge to pure screw. The Instead of inserting an extra disk of material one atomic layer thick between the cut surfaces of Figure 1-8, we eould just as well have Temoved such a disk from the crystal and then rejoined the atoms on either side of the cut. If the latter procedure had ben followed, the prismatic loop would resemble the drawing of Figure 1-9. Fioune 1-9. Section through prismatic loop of opposite sign to . loop of Figure 1-8, Motion of Dislocations The motion of dislocations leads to plastio deformation, For example, consider the pair of straight edge dislocations shown in Migure 1-10. (The edge dislocations are represented here by their einaas Ficune 1-10. Slip produced by motion of two edge dislocations, conventional symbol . The upright part of the 1 sign denotes the extra half plane of atoms and the bottom, horizontal segment is the slip plane.) ‘These dislocations, which are of opposite sign, move across the crystal in the opposite direction. When the two dis. locations pass out of the crystal, a step is produced on eithes side.12 ELEMENTARY DISLOCATION THEORY (IE the lattice contains many edge dislocations that move out of the crystal, the resultant deformed crystal will resemble the drawing of Figure 1-11.) The end result is equivalent to that produced by sliding Ficure 1-11. Slip produced by motion of many edge dislocations. all the atoms on one side of the plane containing the two dislocation lines over those on the other side through a distance of one atom spacing. We know that in a perfect lattice a stress of the order of u/8 is needed to move all the atoms on one side of a plane over the remaining atoms. If dislocations are present in a crystal, it will take only the stress required to move a dislocation to cause the atoms to undergo the same displacement. Thus if a crystal contains disloca- tions, and #f the dislocations move easily, the 105 discrepancy noted between the theoretical and some experimentally measured shear strengths may be explained. Beginning students usually find the displacements produced by the motion of screw dislocations rather confusing. Figure 1-12 shows a Ficune 1-12. Slip produced by motion of two screw dislocations. pair of straight left- and right-handed screw dislocations in the act of moving out of the crystal. It should be noted that the shift of atoms parallel to the plane in which a screw dislocation moves is per- pendicular to the direction of motion of the screw dislocation. This