It was noted that the accumulation of nano-sized prismatic defect clusters near to slip dislocations resulted from their mutual elastic interaction. Three-dimensional isotropic elastic calculations were made here of the interaction energy between radiation-induced nano-sized prismatic loops and grown-in dislocation loops. A computational method was first developed for the full 3-dimensional analysis of interaction energies in body-centered cubic Fe and face-centered cubic Cu. A theoretical method was then used for the rigorous calculation of force, torque and induced surface energy on defect clusters. It was shown that small clusters were trapped within a 10nm zone in Fe, and within a 20nm zone in Cu, at room temperature. These values were in rough agreement with experimental observations. The clusters could be absorbed into the core of grown-in dislocations, because of unbalanced moments which provided sufficient energy for the rotation of their Burgers vectors within a zone of 2 to 3nm in Fe. Near to (within a few nm of) a dislocation core in Cu, sessile defect clusters converted to a glissile configuration.

Interaction and Accumulation of Glissile Defect Clusters near Dislocations. N.M.Ghoniem, B.N.Singh, L.Z.Sun, T.Diaz de la Rubia: Journal of Nuclear Materials, 2000, 276, 166-77