Reprise: partial chemical strain dislocations and their role in pinning dislocations to their atmospheres

Abstract

A correct solution for a dislocation atmosphere is provided using Hirth's Standard Model, confirming the errors in Hirth and Lothe. Contrary to what is given there, concentration changes in Cottrell atmospheres reduce an edge dislocation's stress and its elastic energy, thereby reducing the magnitude of the concentration changes. The chemical and elastic strain fields from Cottrell atmospheres are again shown to behave as partial dislocations with variable Burgers vectors that are not crystal translation vectors. The reality of partial dislocations provides a simpler explanation for pinning of dislocations by atmospheres. Much of the literature on dislocation properties in solid solutions should be re-examined.

Keywords:

• dislocations
• alloys
• inhomogeneous strain
• hardening
• equilibrium
• Cottrell atmosphere