Twinning

Dislocation Reactions
Deformation by Twinning
The second important mechanism by which metals
deform is the process known as twinning.
Twinning results when a portion of the crystal takes up
an orientation that is related to the orientation of the
rest of the untwinned lattice in a definite, symmetrical
way.
The twinned portion of the crystal is a mirror image of
the parent crystal.
The plane of symmetry between the two portions is
called the twinning plane.
Note that the twin is visible on the polished surface
because of the change in elevation produced by the
deformation and because of the difference in
crystallographic orientation between the deformed and
unreformed regions.

It should be noted that twinning differs from slip in
several specific respects.

In slip, the orientation of the crystal above and below
the slip plane is the same after deformation as before,
while twinning results in an orientation difference
across the twin plane.
Slip is usually considered to occur in discrete
multiples of the atomic spacing, while in twinning the
atom movements are much less than an atomic
distance.

Slip occurs on relatively widely spread planes, but in
the twinned region of a crystal every atomic plane is
involved in the deformation.

Figure 12-2. Classic picture of twinning.
In general, a dislocation line cannot end inside of a
crystal. The exception is at a node, where three or four
dislocation lines meet.

At a node two dislocations with Burgers vectors b
1
and b
2

combine to produce a resultant dislocation b
3
.

The vector b
3
is given by the vector sum of b
1
and b
2
.

Dissociation or Combination of Dislocations
A dislocation with a Burgers vector equal to one lattice
spacing is said to be a dislocation of unit strength.

Because of energy considerations, dislocations with
strengths larger than unity are generally unstable and
dissociate into two or more dislocations of lower
strength.
The criterion for deciding whether or not the
dissociation will occur is based on two
conditions:
(a) The strain energy of a dislocation, which is
proportional to the square of its Burgers vector.
The dissociation will occur if

The reaction will not occur if

(b) The vector addition (or subtraction) of the Burgers
vector b must agree.
3 2 1
b b b +
2
3
2
2
2
1
b b b + >
2
3
2
2
2
1
b b b + <
(13.1a)
(13.2a)
In adding burgers vectors, each of the corresponding
components are added separately.

Thus

In adding or subtracting components common unit vectors
must be used.

Thus must be expressed as:

] 321 [ ] 211 [ ] 110 [
2 1 o o o
a a a b b = + = +
] 1 11 [
6
] 112 [
3
o o
a a
+
] 111 [
2
] 333 [
6
] 1 11 [
6
] 224 [
6
o o o o
a a a a
= = +
A Burgers vector is specified by giving its components
along the axes of the crystallographic structure cell.

Thus, the Burgers vector for slip in a cubic lattice from a
cube corner to the center of one face has the components
(see Figure 11-7)

The Burgers vector is , or generally
written as .

The magnitude of a dislocation with Burgers vector
is given as:

0 , 2 / , 2 /
o
a
o
a
] 0 2 / 2 / [
o
a
o
a
] 110 )[ 2 / (
o
a b =
] [uvw a
o
2 / 1
]
2 2 2
[ w v u
o
a b + + =
(13.3)
Therefore, the magnitude of the Burgers vector given
above is . 2 /
o
a b =
Example Determine whether the dislocation dissociation
reaction is feasible.



Since this vector equation the x, y, and z components of
the right-hand side of the equation must equal the x, y, and
z components of the left side (original dislocation).


] 2 1 1 [
6
] 1 2 1 [
6
] 1 1 0 [
2
3 2 1
a a a
b b b
+ =
+ =
2
1
6
2
6
1
2
1
:
2
1
6
1
6
2
2
1
:
6
1
6
1
0 :
= + =
= =
=
components z
components y
components x
For the dissociation to be energetically favorable
2
3
2
2
2
1
b b b + >
6 6
6
] ) 2 ( ) 1 ( ) 1 [(
6
6 6
6
] ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 1 [(
6
2 2
2
] ) 1 ( ) 1 ( 0 [
2
2
2
3
2 / 1 2 2 2
3
2
2
2
2 / 1 2 2 2
2
2
2
1
2 / 1 2
1
a
b
a a
b
a
b
a a
b
a
b
a a
b
= = + + =
= = + + =
= = + + =
feasible is reaction n dislocatio the and b b b
2
3
2
2
2
1
+ >
Dislocations in the Face-centered cubic lattice
Slip occurs in the fcc lattice on the {111} plane in the
<110> direction.

The shortest lattice vector is (a
o
/2)[110], which
connects an atom at a cube corner with a neighboring
atom at the center of a cube face.

The Burgers vector is therefore (a
o
/2)[110].
However, consideration of the atomic arrangement on
the {111} slip plane shows that slip will not take place
so simply.

Figure 13-3 represents the atomic packing on a close-
packed (111) plane.

It has already been shown (see Fig 11-4a) that the
{111} planes are stacked on a sequence ABCABC.
Figure 13-3. Slip in a close-packed (111) plane in an
fcc lattice

The vector defines one of the observed slip
directions.

The same shear displacement as produced by b
1
can be
accomplished by the two-step path b
2
+ b
3
.

The latter displacement is more energetically favorable but
it causes the perfect dislocation to decompose into two
partial dislocations.
] 1 10 [
2
|
.
|

\
|
=
o
a
b
] 2 11 [
6
] 1 1 2 [
6
] 1 10 [
2
3 2 1
o o o
a a a
b b b
+
+
The above reaction is energetically favorable since there is a
decrease in strain energy proportional to the change
_______________________________________________
Original dislocation Product of reaction








2 / 1
4
1
0
4
1
1
|
.
|

\
|
+ + =
o
a b
2 / 1
36
1
36
1
36
4
2
(

+ + =
o
a b
o
a b
2
2
1
=
6
2
o
a
b =
6
3
o
a
b =
2
2
2
1
o
a
b =
6
2
2
3
o
a
b =
6
2
2
2
o
a
b = >
2
1
b
2
3
2
2
b b + >
Slip by this two-stage process creates a stacking fault
ABCAC ABC in the stacking sequence.
As Fig. 13-4 shows, the dislocation with Burgers vector
has been dissociated into two partial dislocations and .
This dislocation reaction was suggested by Heidenreich and
Shockley.
Therefore this dislocation arrangement is often known as
Shockley partials, since the dislocations are imperfect ones
which do not produce complete lattice translations.
Figure 13-4 represents the situation looking down on (111)
along .

] 1 11 [
1
b
2
b
3
b
Figure 13-4. Dissociation of a dislocation into two Shockley
partial dislocations.
With the sequence ABC AC ABC, we have four planes in
which the stacking is CA CA, which is exactly the
stacking of HCP structure.

This structure has a higher Gibbs free energy than the
equilibrium FCC structure.

This specific array of planes is called the stacking fault,
and the energy associated with it determines the separation
between the two partial dislocations
The repulsive force between the two partials is balanced by
the attraction trying to minimize the region with the stacking
fault.
The equation for the calculation of the equilibrium separation
between the partial dislocations d is given as:







where is the stacking-fault free energy (SFE) per unit area,
(

|
.
|

\
|

=
v
u v
v
v
t

2
2 cos 2
1
1
2
8
2
d
b G
p
SF
(

+ =
v
u u
u u
t

2
sin sin
cos cos
2
2 1
2 1
2 1
d
b Gb
SF
(13.4)
(13.5)
b
p
is the Burgers vector of the partial dislocation, and u is
the angle of the Burgers vector with the dislocation line.
Table 13.1 presents the SFEs for some materials

Table 13-1. SFEs and Shockley Separations of Materials



Metal

(mJ/m
2
)
a
o
(nm) b (nm) G
(GPa)
d (nm)
Al 166 0.41 0.286 26.1 1
Cu 78 0.367 2.55 48.3 3.2
Au 45 0.408 0.288 27.0
Ni 128 0.352 0.249 76.0 2.9
Ag 22 0.409 0.289 30.3 9
From the preceding equations, it can be seen that d is
inversely proportional to .
Aluminum, which has a high SFE (166 mJ/m
2
), does exhibit
a very small separation between partials: 1 nm.
SFE is very sensitive to composition
Addition of alloying elements in a material helps to
decrease the SFE. Examples:
Brasses have SFE lower than that of Cu,
Al alloys have SFE lower than that of Al,
the addition of Al to Cu drops the SFE from 78 to 6 mJ/m
2
.
Figure 13-5 shows stacking faults in 302 stainless steel
viewed by TEM - seen as characteristic fringe (////) pattern.

Low-SFE metals tend to exhibit a deformation substructure
characterized by banded, linear arrays of dislocations.
Cross-slip is more difficult, because the dislocations have
to constrict in order to change slip planes.
High-SFE metals tend to exhibit dislocations arranged in
tangles or cells.
Figure 13-5. Group of stacking faults in 302 stainless steel stopped
at boundary on left-hand side.