The nucleation and propagation of dissociated full dislocations from grain boundaries in nanocrystalline face-centered cubic metals was considered in terms of the splitting distance between 2 partial dislocations. It was demonstrated that the use of the splitting distance assumed the existence of partial dislocations, and therefore could not account for nucleation effects. Even when both partial dislocations were nucleated, the local stress distribution seemed to play an important role in the separation of the partials.

Dislocations Emitted from Nanocrystalline Grain Boundaries - Nucleation and Splitting Distance. A.G.Frøseth, P.M.Derlet, H.Van Swygenhoven: Acta Materialia, 2004, 52[20], 5863-70