Dislocation mechanisms for the nucleation of transformations in vanadium carbide

Abstract

An electron microscope study has indicated that large intrinsic stacking faults are formed in the cubic structured vanadium carbide at compositions close to the VC–V₂C phase boundary. It is proposed that these faults, bounded by Shockley partial dislocations, provide the nuclei for a transformation of the cubic carbide to the hexagonal V₂C or ζ phases which occurs at slightly lower carbon concentrations.