Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 27 June 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5884, pp. 1745 - 1748
DOI: 10.1126/science.1156101
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Dislocation Mean Free Paths and Strain Hardening of Crystals

B. Devincre,1 T. Hoc,2 L. Kubin1*

Predicting the strain hardening properties of crystals constitutes a long-standing challenge for dislocation theory. The main difficulty resides in the integration of dislocation processes through a wide range of time and length scales, up to macroscopic dimensions. In the present multiscale approach, dislocation dynamics simulations are used to establish a dislocation-based continuum model incorporating discrete and intermittent aspects of plastic flow. This is performed through the modeling of a key quantity, the mean free path of dislocations. The model is then integrated at the scale of bulk crystals, which allows for the detailed reproduction of the complex deformation curves of face-centered cubic crystals. Because of its predictive ability, the proposed framework has a large potential for further applications.

1 Laboratoire d'Etude des Microstructures, Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 104 CNRS, CNRS–Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA), 20 Avenue de la Division Leclerc, BP 72, 92322 Chatillon Cedex, France.
2 Laboratoire MSSMat, UMR 8579 CNRS, Ecole Centrale Paris, Grande Voie des Vignes, 92295 Chatenay-Malabry Cedex, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ladislas.kubin{at}onera.fr

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)