A study was made of the relaxation dynamics of systems of straight parallel dislocations, starting from initially random and uncorrelated positions of the individual dislocations. A scaling model of the relaxation process was constructed by considering the gradual extinction of the initial density fluctuations present in the system. The model was validated by ensemble simulations of the discrete dynamics of dislocations. Convincing agreement was found, for systems of edge dislocations in single-slip, regardless of the net Burgers vector of the dislocation system. It was also demonstrated that the model did not work in multiple-slip geometries.

The Role of Density Fluctuations in the Relaxation of Random Dislocation Systems. F.F.Csikor, M.Zaiser, P.D.Ispánovity, I.Groma: Journal of Statistical Mechanics, 2009, P03036