Diffusion dislocation

As we saw in Chapter 10, the stress required to make a crystalline material deform plastically is that needed to make the dislocations in it move. Their movement is resisted by (a) the intrinsic lattice resistance and (b) the obstructing effect of obstacles (e.g. dissolved solute atoms, precipitates formed with undissolved solute atoms, or other dislocations). Diffusion of atoms can unlock dislocations from obstacles in their path, and the movement of these unlocked dislocations under the applied stress is what leads to dislocation creep. 

Figure 5.3 Schematic representation of the penetration profile for bulk, grain boundary, and dislocation diffusion in a polycrystalline solid. The initial part of the curve is bell shaped, and the part due to short-circuit diffusion is made up of linear segments. The insets show the distribution of the tracer in the sample.

Derive an equation similar to Eq. 9.4 for the effective bulk self-diffusivity, ( D), in the presence of fast dislocation diffusion. Assume that the dislocations are present at a density, p, corresponding to the dislocation line length in a unit volume of material. 

Dislocation diffusion in plate samples was studied by using local electron-beam heating. The dislocations were present in high densities. The diffusion process was monitored by using radioactive tracers and the p-n junction method, and it... 

The relative contribution of the different types of diffusion in oxides and other inorganic compounds are functions of the temperature, partial pressures or activities of the constituents of the compounds, the microstructure, grain size, porosity etc. Grain boundary and dislocation diffusion generally have smaller activation energies than lattice diffusion and as a result become increasingly important the lower the temperature in solids with a given microstructure. 

Dislocation theory as a portion of the subject of solid-state physics is somewhat beyond the scope of this book, but it is desirable to examine the subject briefly in terms of its implications in surface chemistry. Perhaps the most elementary type of defect is that of an extra or interstitial atom—Frenkel defect [110]—or a missing atom or vacancy—Schottky defect [111]. Such point defects play an important role in the treatment of diffusion and electrical conductivities in solids and the solubility of a salt in the host lattice of another or different valence type [112]. Point defects have a thermodynamic basis for their existence in terms of the energy and entropy of their formation, the situation is similar to the formation of isolated holes and erratic atoms on a surface. Dislocations, on the other hand, may be viewed as an organized concentration of point defects they are lattice defects and play an important role in the mechanism of the plastic deformation of solids. Lattice defects or dislocations are not thermodynamic in the sense of the point defects their formation is intimately connected with the mechanism of nucleation and crystal growth (see Section IX-4), and they constitute an important source of surface imperfection. 

Figure C2.11.6. The classic two-particle sintering model illustrating material transport and neck growtli at tire particle contacts resulting in coarsening (left) and densification (right) during sintering. Surface diffusion (a), evaporation-condensation (b), and volume diffusion (c) contribute to coarsening, while volume diffusion (d), grain boundary diffusion (e), solution-precipitation (f), and dislocation motion (g) contribute to densification.

The other major defects in solids occupy much more volume in the lattice of a crystal and are refeiTed to as line defects. There are two types of line defects, the edge and screw defects which are also known as dislocations. These play an important part, primarily, in the plastic non-Hookeian extension of metals under a tensile stress. This process causes the translation of dislocations in the direction of the plastic extension. Dislocations become mobile in solids at elevated temperamres due to the diffusive place exchange of atoms with vacancies at the core, a process described as dislocation climb. The direction of climb is such that the vacancies move along any stress gradient, such as that around an inclusion of oxide in a metal, or when a metal is placed under compression. 

Fast diffusion paths grain boundary and dislocation core diffusion... 

Diffusion in the bulk crystals may sometimes be short circuited by diffusion down grain boundaries or dislocation cores. The boundary acts as a planar channel, about two atoms wide, with a local diffusion rate which can be as much as 10 times greater than in the bulk (Figs. 18.8 and 10.4). The dislocation core, too, can act as a high conductivity wire of cross-section about (2b), where b is the atom size (Fig. 18.9). Of course, their contribution to the total diffusive flux depends also on how many grain boundaries or dislocations there are when grains are small or dislocations numerous, their contribution becomes important. 

There are two mechanisms of creep dislocation creep (which gives power-law behaviour) and diffusiona creep (which gives linear-viscous creep). The rate of both is usually limited by diffusion, so both follow Arrhenius s Law. Creep fracture, too, depends on diffusion. Diffusion becomes appreciable at about 0.37 - that is why materials start to creep above this temperature. 

The dislocation cannot glide upwards by the shearing of atom planes - the atomic geometry is wrong - but the dislocation can move upwards if atoms at the bottom of the half-plane are able to diffuse away (Fig. 19.2). We have come across Fick s Law in which diffusion is driven by differences in concentration. A mechanical force can do exactly the same thing, and this is what leads to the diffusion of atoms away from the... 

Climb unlocks dislocations from the precipitates which pin them and further slip (or glide ) can then take place (Fig. 19.3). Similar behaviour takes place for pinning by solute, and by other dislocations. After a little glide, of course, the unlocked dislocations bump into the next obstacles, and the whole cycle repeats itself. This explains the progressive, continuous, nature of creep, and the role of diffusion, with diffusion coefficient... 

As the stress is reduced, the rate of power-law creep (eqn. (19.1)) falls quickly (remember n is between 3 and 8). But creep does not stop instead, an alternative mechanism takes over. As Fig. 19.4 shows, a polycrystal can extend in response to the applied stress, ct, by grain elongation here, cr acts again as a mechanical driving force but, this time atoms diffuse from one set of the grain faces to the other, and dislocations are not involved. At high T/Tm, this diffusion takes place through the crystal itself, that... 

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