Size effects in stress penetration and dynamics of dislocations: Fe-Ni-Cr steel

Abstract: Movement of edge (line) dislocations in FCC steel 310S is shown to depend on the size on nanoscale structures, based on modeling withing molecular dynamics (MD). The effect is attributed to time (and size) dependencies of pressure propagation into the medium interior. The observation is crucial in interpreting any MD studies of pressure effects since these are governed by time-dependent internal virial stresses. In particular velocity of dislocations scales well with value of local internal shear component of virial stress $S_{xy}$ and not with external shear pressure. Dynamics of stress penetration is described well within the model of damped harmonic oscillator, where characteristic oscillation frequency depends on number of crystallographic layers in direction along the wave propagation while the speed of stress propagation is the speed of sound. The minimal stress required for dislocation movement (Peierls stress) is determined to be 0.75 GPa. Pressure and temperature effects on dislocation movement are systematically investigated.