Using the properties of screened disclinations, a number of qualitative and quantitative models for structure formation and evolution in plastically deformed materials was considered. The disclination theory of grain boundaries and their junctions in conventional polycrystals was presented. Bands with misoriented crystal lattices, in metals and other materials, were described as being a result of partial wedge disclination dipole motion. The disclination approach was applied to the study of work-hardening at high strains. For nanocrystals, the disclination approach permitted an explanation of the peculiarities of the flow-stress dependence upon the grain size. The contribution of disclinations to the relaxation of mechanical stresses in lattice-mismatched thin layers placed on a bulk substrate was examined, and linked to the appearance of domain patterns. Finally, disclination models for the structure and properties of nanoparticles were presented. These models treated the pentagonal symmetry of micro- and nanoparticles and nanorods of materials with a face-centered cubic structure, and explained stability and relaxation phenomena in such pentagonal objects.

Application of Disclination Concept to Solid Structures. A.E.Romanov, A.L.Kolesnikova: Progress in Materials Science, 2009, 54[6], 740-69