Dislocation-crack interaction

In this paper, recent developments in the understanding of the dislocation-crack interaction and its relationship to the phenomena of crack tip deformation and fracture toughness are reviewed. An enhanced research activity in this area began with successful observations of the behavior of crack tip dislocations by various techniques, namely etch pits technique, X-ray topography and transmision electron microscopy. The advantages and limitations of these techniques are compared and the information obtained from these experiments are discussed. The results show that dislocations are emitted from a crack tip when the applied stress is sufficiently high. During crack propagation, dislocations are also generated from other bulk sources and the number of these dislocations relative to those from the crack tip may be an important parameter. The elastic theory of the interaction between dislocations and a crack is presented by considering the force on the dislocations. The theory is applied to derive a dislocation emission condition, which may be expressed in terms of a critical stress intensity factor. It is concluded that the dislocations emitted from a crack tip are repelled from the crack tip and this repulsive interaction is responsible for the formation of a dislocation-free zone. These dislocations shield the crack tip from the applied stress and hence contribute to an increase in the fracture toughness. The physical origin of the dislocation-free zone lies in the presence of a barrier to dislocation emission from the crack tip. One of the barriers to dislocation emission is the image stress. With the dislocation-free zone, the crack tip can maintain a finite stress intensity factor following crack tip deformation. The lattice theories of dislocation-crack interaction indicate that the results are consistent with those of the continuum theory.