The controversial issue of whether dislocations can travel faster than shear or longitudinal waves was investigated. The Peierls model was modified so as to account for drag and gradient effects, and furnished a kinetic relationship between the applied shear stress and the speed of uniformly moving dislocations. This relationship predicted intersonic and supersonic speeds at sufficiently high stresses, and also regimes of unstable motion; in agreement with recent atomistic simulations.

Supersonic Dislocation Kinetics from an Augmented Peierls Model. P.Rosakis: Physical Review Letters, 2001, 86[1], 95-8