The relaxation of an initially random arrangement of straight, parallel edge dislocations was studied with discrete dislocation dynamics simulation. The time evolution of several quantities characterising the elastic state of the embedding crystal as well as the correlation and kinematic properties of the dislocations was calculated numerically. With non-linear curve fitting it was found that these quantities decay as power law functions of time with exponents between 0.5 and 1 meaning that the dynamics of dislocation relaxation was extremely slow.

Numerical Characterisation of the Relaxation of Dislocation Systems. F.F.Csikor, B.Kocsis, B.Bakó, I.Groma: Materials Science and Engineering A, 2005, 400-401, 214-7