Quantitative analysis of in situ straining experiments in the case of strong frictional forces

Investigation of frictional forces -Experimental techniques and working conditions in the high voltage electron microscope have already been described (1). Care has been taken in order to minimize both surface and radiation effects under deformation conditions.Dislocation densities and velocities are measured on the records of the deformation. It can be noticed that mobile dislocation densities can be far below the total dislocation density in the operative system. The local strain-rate can be deduced from these measurements. The local flow stresses are deduced from the curvature radii of the dislocations when the local strain-rate reaches the values of ∿ 10-4 s-1.For a straight screw segment of length L moving by double-kink nucleation between two pinning points, the velocity is :where ΔG(τ) is the activation energy and lc the critical length for double-kink nucleation. The term L/lc takes into account the number of simultaneous attempts for double-kink nucleation on the dislocation line.