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It is very exceptional for the crystal lattice of any solid, be it metallic or nonmetallic,
to achieve geometric perfection. Most real substances contain
impurities, which may be present as atoms or ions in solution, or as chemical
compounds in the form of inclusions. A site in the lattice normally occupied by
an ion may be empty: this is a point defect known as a vacancy. All such defects
result in local lattice strains. Much more significant, however, is the presence of
dislocations. These occur where planes of ions are partly missing. Figure 1.3,
for example, is a diagram in which the lattice planes are represented as lines.
One half-plane is absent, and the remainder are correspondingly distorted.
Dislocations may take various geometric forms, and may in practice be complex
and may also be distorted. The manner in which they behave when exposed to a
shear stress in the plastic range may, however, be quite adequately illustrated by
reference to a simple edge dislocation, as shown in Fig. 1.4. Lines of ions along
the slip plane relocate progressively and stepwise from the right-hand side of the
dislocation to the left, so that the solid below the slip line moves in the direction
of the shear while the dislocation moves in the opposite direction. In this way the
two blocks of metal move relatively to each other without losing cohesion. This,
as noted earlier, is an essential requirement for plastic flow in a crystalline solid
if it is to retain both its integrity and its crystalline form.
Slip plane
1.3 Edge dislocation.
Slip
plane
1.4 The mechanism of dislocation movement. The solid below the slip
plane moves from right to left while the dislocation moves in the
opposite direction.
1.3.3 Dislocation velocity and the strain rate
It will be evident from Fig. 1.4 that dislocations must possess one property that
will influence the rate of plastic flow, namely, the dislocation velocity. In certain
substances the presence of dislocations may be disclosed by attacking the
polished surfaces of a sample with an etching agent. Exposing samples of such
materials to a stress pulse of known intensity and duration, followed by
treatment with a suitable etch, makes it possible to plot dislocation velocity as a
function of shear stress. Figure 1.5 shows such a plot for 3^% silicon iron at
various temperatures. It will be evident that the dislocation velocity varies very
rapidly with applied stress:
(1.9)
where VD is dislocation velocity, T is applied shear stress and A: is a constant.
Hence
(1.10)
where VDy is the dislocation velocity at the yield stress.
Now the axial strain rate ds/dt must be related to the dislocation velocity.
Suppose that the volume density of mobile dislocations is pD and the mean area
displacement associated with each emergent dislocation is SA resolved in the
axial direction, then
(1.11)
(1.12)
(1.13)
Thus, for any single batch of a particular metal, where pD and SA are constant,
and from equation 1.10
since shear stress is proportional to axial stress.
This relationship may be interpreted as follows. Suppose that a series of tensile
testpieces are prepared from a single batch of material, and suppose that they are
tested at successively higher strain rates. Then an individual specimen would be
expected to behave elastically up to the stress at which the dislocation velocity is
high enough to match the relevant strain rate. Such tests have been carried out on
a high-tensile structural steel and the results are shown in Fig. 1.6(a). In Fig.
1.6(b) the same data are presented in log-log form with strain rates as ordinates in
order to allow comparison with Fig. 1.5. The two curves are in fact very similar in
Dislocation velocity (cm s~1)