The classical derivation of the Peierls stress was critically examined. It was noted that, in the Peierls-Nabarro treatment, there might be an error in representing the atom positions across the slip plane when the dislocation was translated through some distance. Upon correcting this error, it was shown that the misfit energy of the dislocation and the lattice friction resistance to dislocation motion exhibited an expected periodicity of the Burgers vector, b, rather than the unexpected periodicity of b/2 which was predicted by the original model. The new representation of the atom positions also showed that the Peierls stress formula for a dislocation, in a lattice where atoms just above and below the slip plane faced each other, might not be different to that for a dislocation in a lattice where atoms alternated across the slip plane.

A New Modification of the Formulation of Peierls Stress. J.N.Wang: Acta Materialia, 1996, 44[4], 1541-6