Various types of dislocation configuration, including single dislocations, dipoles and interface dislocations, were considered. The numerical description of dislocation statics, using a high spatial resolution, provided a useful means for checking the assumptions which were usually incorporated into analytical models of strain hardening and flow stress. It was shown that interface dislocations generated long-range stress fields, as predicted by using analytical models. However, contrary to the predictions of many models, their contribution to the total dislocation density was not negligible. The simulations confirmed that an adequate description of local stress fields, and therefore of strain hardening and flow stress, could be obtained only if local dislocation densities plus the nature and arrangement of the dislocations, were taken into account. Because the statics of complicated dislocation arrangements could not really be treated analytically, due to their long-range stress fields, numerical methods were considered to be an important additional tool for the theoretical treatment of flow stress.

F.Roters, D.Raabe: Materials Science and Technology, 1996, 12[4], 281-9