The effects of elastic anisotropy on dislocation line tension in metals

Abstract

Formulae for the energy, its first derivative with respect to orientation and the line tension of straight dislocations in elastic media of arbitrary anisotropy are developed. The formulae may be evaluated rapidly and precisely by numerical integration, thus avoiding the need for solving a sextic algebraic equation common to previous techniques used to calculate these quantities. Numerical results are presented in graphical and tabular form for a selection of cubic metals including iron, niobium, copper and nickel. The efficiency and accuracy of the method are compared to that of previous methods and the applications of the numerical results to the study of interactions between complex dislocation configurations using a formalism developed by Brown is discussed.