Precipitation hardening was investigated by simulating dislocation glide through obstacle fields and by determining the critical resolved shear stress. Lattice mismatch-strengthened (Cu-rich) materials were considered. The precipitates were spherical, and the distribution of their radii and their 3-dimensional spatial arrangements were close to those of an actual Ostwald-ripened crystal. Dislocation dissociation into Shockley partials was taken into account, and 2 dislocations with Burgers vectors of (a/6)<112>-type were simulated. The elastic interaction of each of them with itself, and with the other, was fully represented. This interaction concept was essentially identical to the Brown-Bacon one. The mean particle radius, r, was varied from 0.5 to 16nm, and the cases of r < d and r > d were covered; where d was the equilibrium distance between the Shockley partials of a dissociated dislocation in a Cu-matrix.

Computer Simulations of Particle Strengthening - the Effects of Dislocation Dissociation on Lattice Mismatch Strengthening. V.Mohles: Materials Science and Engineering A, 2001, 319-321, 206-10