Elastic interaction energy between a prismatic dislocation loop and a spherical cavity

Abstract

The elastic interaction energy between a prismatic dislocation loop and a spherical cavity is derived in the form of a concisely expressed infinite series. In addition to numerical results, closed-form asymptotic expressions are also given in three cases: the loop is far removed from the cavity; the loop is close to the cavity surface, and the loop and cavity radii are similar in magnitude; the loop radius is small in comparison with the cavity radius but its distance to the surface is larger than its diameter. It is shown finally that an approximate expression for the image interaction which is quite accurate over the entire range of separation distances can be constructed from these asymptotic expressions.