Incident Wave and Dislocation Acceleration Effects in Dislocation Emission From Cracks

Some previous transient analyses of dislocation emission from dynamically loaded cracks have treated glide at constant speeds, and have invoked an emissions criterion that allows the dislocation force to exceed the yield stress level during glide. In the context of nonstrain-hardening plasticity, this analysis requires that the force remain at the yield stress level. For an exact solution to the problem of screw dislocation emission from a crack subjected to plane SH-wave diffraction, the result is an equation of motion for the dislocation, which can be integrated exactly. The dislocation is found to accelerate during glide to a high but subcritical speed, before decelerating to its arrest position. A general incident SH-wave is considered, but is then specialized to the cases of a step-stress and a sinusoidal wave. Calculations on the basis of material and wave parameters show that purely brittle fracture can be difficult to achieve, and that wavelength/frequency cutoffs exist, beyond which emission cannot occur.