Materials Theory最新文献

Cellular patterns formed by self-organization of dislocations are a most conspicuous feature of dislocation microstructure evolution during plastic deformation. To elucidate the physical mechanisms underlying dislocation cell structure formation, we use a minimal model for the evolution of dislocation densities under load. By considering only two slip systems in a plane strain setting, we arrive at a model which is amenable to analytical stability analysis and numerical simulation. We use this model to establish analytical stability criteria for cell structures to emerge, to investigate the dynamics of the patterning process and establish the mechanism of pattern wavelength selection. This analysis demonstrates an intimate relationship between hardening and cell structure formation, which appears as an almost inevitable corollary to dislocation dominated strain hardening. Specific mechanisms such as cross slip, by contrast, turn out to be incidental to the formation of cellular patterns.

During plastic deformation of crystalline solids, intricate networks of dislocation lines form and evolve. To capture dislocation density evolution, prominent theories of crystal plasticity assume that 1) multiplication is driven by slip in active slip systems and 2) pair-wise slip system interactions dominate network evolution. In this work, we analyze a massive database of over 100 discrete dislocation dynamics simulations (with cross-slip suppressed), and our findings bring both of these assumptions into question. We demonstrate that dislocation multiplication is commonly observed on slip systems with no applied stress and no plastic strain rate, a phenomenon we refer to as slip-free multiplication. We show that while the formation of glissile junctions provides one mechanism for slip-free multiplication, additional mechanisms which account for the influence of coplanar interactions are needed to fully explain the observations. Unlike glissile junction formation which results from a binary reaction between a pair of slip systems, these new multiplication mechanisms require higher order reactions that lead to complex network configurations. While these complex configurations have not been given much attention previously, they account for about 50% of the line intersections in our database.

Coarse-grained descriptions of dislocation motion in crystalline metals inherently represent a loss of information regarding dislocation-dislocation interactions. In the present work, we consider a coarse-graining framework capable of re-capturing these interactions by means of the dislocation-dislocation correlation functions. The framework depends on a convolution length to define slip-system-specific dislocation densities. Following a statistical definition of this coarse-graining process, we define a spatial correlation function which will allow the arrangement of the discrete line system at two points—and thus the strength of their interactions at short range—to be recaptured into a mean field description of dislocation dynamics. Through a statistical homogeneity argument, we present a method of evaluating this correlation function from discrete dislocation dynamics simulations. Finally, results of this evaluation are shown in the form of the correlation of dislocation densities on the same slip-system. These correlation functions are seen to depend weakly on plastic strain, and in turn, the dislocation density, but are seen to depend strongly on the convolution length. Implications of these correlation functions in regard to continuum dislocation dynamics as well as future directions of investigation are also discussed.

The fundamental interactions between an edge dislocation and a random solid solution are studied by analyzing dislocation line roughness profiles obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of Fe_0.70Ni_0.11Cr_0.19 over a range of stresses and temperatures. These roughness profiles reveal the hallmark features of a depinning transition. Namely, below a temperature-dependent critical stress, the dislocation line exhibits roughness in two different length scale regimes which are divided by a so-called correlation length. This correlation length increases with applied stress and at the critical stress (depinning transition or yield stress) formally goes to infinity. Above the critical stress, the line roughness profile converges to that of a random noise field. Motivated by these results, a physical model is developed based on the notion of coherent line bowing over all length scales below the correlation length. Above the correlation length, the solute field prohibits such coherent line bow outs. Using this model, we identify potential gaps in existing theories of solid solution strengthening and show that recent observations of length-dependent dislocation mobilities can be rationalized.

Collective motion of dislocations is governed by the obstacles they encounter. In pure crystals, dislocations form complex structures as they become jammed by their anisotropic shear stress fields. On the other hand, introducing disorder to the crystal causes dislocations to pin to these impeding elements and, thus, leads to a competition between dislocation-dislocation and dislocation-disorder interactions. Previous studies have shown that, depending on the dominating interaction, the mechanical response and the way the crystal yields change.Here we employ three-dimensional discrete dislocation dynamics simulations with varying density of fully coherent precipitates to study this phase transition ? from jamming to pinning ? using unsupervised machine learning. By constructing descriptors characterizing the evolving dislocation configurations during constant loading, a confusion algorithm is shown to be able to distinguish the systems into two separate phases. These phases agree well with the observed changes in the relaxation rate during the loading. Our results also give insights on the structure of the dislocation networks in the two phases.

One of the most intriguing phenomena under radiation is the self-organization of defects, such as the void superlattices, which have been observed in a list of bcc and fcc metals and alloys when the irradiation conditions fall into certain windows defined by temperature and dose rate. A superlattice features a lattice parameter and a crystal structure. Previously, it has been shown that the superlattice parameter is given by the wavelength of vacancy concentration waves that develop when the uniform concentration field becomes unstable. This instability is driven thermodynamically by vacancy concentration supersaturation and affected by the irradiation condition. However, a theory that predicts the superlattice symmetry, i.e., the selection of superlattice structure, has remained missing decades after the first report of superlattices. By analyzing the nonlinear recombination between vacancies and self-interstitial-atoms (SIAs) in the discrete lattice space, this work establishes the physical connection between symmetry breaking and anisotropic SIA diffusion, allowing for predictions of void ordering during defect self-organization. The results suggest that while the instability is driven thermodynamically by vacancy supersaturation, the symmetry development is kinetically rather than thermodynamically driven. The significance of SIA diffusion anisotropy in affecting superlattice formation under irradiation is also indicated. Various superlattice structures can be predicted based on different SIA diffusion modes, and the predictions are in good agreement with atomistic simulations and previous experimental observations.

An efficient and accurate approach for calculating exact exchange and other two-electron integrals has been developed for periodic electronic structure methods. Traditional approaches used for integrating over the Brillouin zone in band structure calculations, e.g. trapezoidal or Monkhorst-Pack, are not accurate enough for two-electron integrals. This is because their integrands contain multiple singularities over the double integration of the Brillouin zone, which with simple integration methods lead to very inaccurate results. A common approach to this problem has been to replace the Coulomb interaction with a screened Coulomb interaction that removes singularities from the integrands in the two-electron integrals, albeit at the inelegance of having to introduce a screening factor which must precomputed or guessed. Instead of introducing screened Coulomb interactions in an ad hoc way, the method developed in this work derives an effective screened potential using a Filon-like integration approach that is based only on the lattice parameters. This approach overcomes the limitations of traditionally defined screened Coulomb interactions for calculating two-electron integrals, and makes chemistry many-body calculations tractable in periodic boundary conditions. This method has been applied to several systems for which conventional DFT methods do not work well, including the reaction pathways for the addition of H₂ to phenol and Au(_{20}^{-}) nanoparticle, and the electron transfer of a charge trapped state in the Fe(II) containing mica, annite.