INTRODUCTION

A perfect crystal is an idealization; there is no such thing in nature. Atom

arrangements in real materials do not follow perfect crystalline patterns. Nonetheless,

most of the materials that are useful in engineering are crystalline to a very good approximation.
There is fundamental physical reason for this. The preferred structures of solids at low
temperature are those that minimize the energy. The low-energy atomic configurations are almost
invariably crystalline since the regular pattern of the crystal lattice repeats whatever local
configuration is most favorable for bonding. There is also a fundamental physical reason why the
crystal is imperfect. While a perfect crystalline

structure may be preferred energetically, at least in the limit of low temperature, atoms

are relatively immobile in solids and it is, therefore, difficult to eliminate whatever

imperfections are introduced into the crystal during its growth, processing or use. The fact that
real materials are not perfect crystals is critical to materials engineering. If materials were perfect
crystals then their properties would be dictated by their

composition and crystal structure alone, and would be very restricted in their values and

their variety. It is the possibility of making imperfectly crystalline materials that permits

materials scientists to tailor material properties into the diverse combinations that modern

engineering devices require. The most important features of the microstructure of an engineering
material are the crystalline defects that are manipulated to control its behavior.

It is useful to classify crystal lattice defects by their dimension.

The 0-dimensional defects affect isolated sites in the crystal structure, and are hence called point
defects. An example is a solute or impurity atom, which alters the crystal pattern at a single point.

The 1-dimensional defects are called dislocations. They are lines along which the crystal pattern is
broken.

The 2-dimensional defects are surfaces, such as the external surface and the grain boundaries
along which distinct crystallites are joined together.

The 3-dimensional defects change the crystal pattern over a finite volume.

They include precipitates, which are small volumes of different crystal structure, and also
include large voids or inclusions of second-phase particles.
 LINE DEFECTS: DISLOCATION

Dislocations are linear defects; they are lines through the crystal along which
crystallographic registry is lost. Their principle role in the microstructure is to control the
yield strength and subsequent plastic deformation of crystalline solids at ordinary
temperatures. Dislocations also participate in the growth of crystals and in the structures
of interfaces between crystals. They act as electrical defects in optical materials and
semiconductors, in which they are almost always undesirable.
The concept of a dislocation in a solid was introduced by Volterra in the
nineteenth century. However, it was not until much later that their relevance to the
deformation of crystals was recognized; the notion of a dislocation as the carrier of
plastic deformation did not appear until 1934. Since the 1950's it has been possible to
observe and study dislocations directly using such techniques as transmission electron
microscopy and x-ray topography. While dislocations influence many aspects of physical
behavior, they are studied almost exclusively in Materials Science. Most of you are
encountering the concept of a dislocation for the first time.
 The edge dislocation
The simplest way to grasp the idea of a dislocation is to imagine how you might
go about creating one. We begin by making an edge dislocation, which is the easiest type
of dislocation to visualize in a crystal, and follow the recipe laid down by Volterra.
Consider the solid body that is drawn in Fig. 1. For the present purpose it does
not matter whether the body is crystalline; it may be easier to imagine that it is rubber.

FIG 1: A block of material with planar cut indicated by shading

To create an edge dislocation in this body we first make a planar cut part way
through it, as illustrated by the shaded region in the figure. We then fix the part of the
body below the cut, and apply a force to the body above the cut that tends to displace it in
the direction of the cut, as illustrated in Fig.2 . The upper part slides, or slips over the
lower by the vector distance b, which is the relative displacement of the two lips of the
cut. The plane of the cut, where slip occurs, is called the slip plane. The cut is finite and
constrained at its end, so material accumulates there. The end of the cut, or equivalently,
the boundary of the planar region of slip, is a linear discontinuity in the material. The
situation after the slip is shown in Fig. 2
 FIG.2 : The uper part of the has
been slipped by the vector b over
the shaded area. The terminal line
is a discontinuity, marked by
heavy line.

Now suppose that we have a mechanism for welding the material back together
which is so efficient that it is impossible to tell after the fact that the weld was ever made.
If we match the material above the shaded plane to that below so that there is no physical
discontinuity across the plane and weld the lips together, the shading disappears since it
is impossible to tell that the material was ever separated. However, matching the material
across the plane of slip requires that excess material be gathered at the line at which slip
terminates. This line is, therefore, a linear defect in the material. It is called an edge
dislocation. It is an isolated defect, as shown in Fig. 3 since after the material has been
re-welded there is no unique way to determine how the dislocation was created. For
example, the dislocation would be exactly the same if the material to the right of it on the
slip plane were slipped by the vector -b on the same plane. Only the exterior step indicates
the origin of the dislocation, and this may be removed, or may have pre-existed
the formation of the dislocation.
However it was created, the edge dislocation in Fig. 3 has the property that it
defines an element of slip, b, where the vector b is called the Burgers vector of the
dislocation. It is the plane that contains both the Burgers vector, b, and the line of the
dislocation. However the dislocation actually came to its present position, its net effect is
that the material above the slip plane to the left of the dislocation (in the direction of -b)
has been displaced by b relative to that below the slip plane. The dislocation is a linear
defect whose location is defined by its line and whose nature is characterized by its
Burgers vector, b. In the case shown in Fig. 3 the Burgers vector is perpendicular to
the dislocation line. This perpendicularity is characteristic of an edge dislocation.
 FIG.3 :Isolated edge dislocation after the cut surface has been rejoined.

If a dislocation moves the area that has been slipped grows or shrinks accordingly.Imagine
that the dislocation is initially created at the left edge of the slip plane in Fig. 3 ,and is then
gradually moved to the right edge. Applying the construction in Fig. 2 , to the initial and final
positions of the dislocation, it follows that the motion of the dislocation through the body
causes the whole volume of material above the slip plane to be displaced by the vector b
with respect to that below it, as shown in Fig. 4.

FIG. 4 : Final state of the body after an edge dislocation with burger vector b
has crossed the whole of the slip plane shown

Fig. 4 illustrates the connection between the motion of a dislocation (in this
case, an edge dislocation) and the plastic, or permanent deformation of a material. As we
shall discuss in more detail when we consider the mechanical properties of materials,
plastic deformation changes the shape of a body without changing its volume, since the
total number of atoms and the crystal structure remain the same. A change in shape that
occurs at constant volume can always be represented geometrically as the sum of
elementary deformations of a type known as simple shear. A simple shear is the kind of
deformation that deforms a cube into a parallelogram; it changes the angles between
initially perpendicular directions in the cube. The shear due to the passage of an edge
dislocation is illustrated in Fig. 5 . While the dislocation translates the top of the crystal
rigidly over the bottom to create a discrete step, the Burgers' vector has atomic
dimensions, so the step is invisible. Macroscopic deformation is the sum of the slip
caused by many dislocations.

FIG. 5 : Figure (b) is obtained from (a) by a simple shear of the top over the bottom.
Figure (c) shows how the same shear can be caused by an edge dislocation
 An edge dislocation in a simple cubic crystal
The procedure that was used to create the edge dislocation that appears in Fig. 3
made no reference to the structure of the solid, and can be used to form an edge
dislocation in any material. However, when the material is crystalline the ordered pattern
of atoms restricts the values that the Burgers vector, b, can have. The restriction is
introduced by the welding step that is used to change the configuration shown in Fig. 2
to that in Fig. 3 . The welding must be so perfect that it is impossible to tell that the two
surfaces were ever separated. If the solid is crystalline this can only be true if the crystal
structure is continuous across the slip plane after the weld is made. It follows that the
relative displacement across the slip plane must equal a lattice vector so that atoms can
re-bond without changing their local atomic configurations. Since the relative
displacement is equal to the Burgers vector, b, of the dislocation, b must be a lattice
vector. If the dislocation is an edge dislocation, b must also be perpendicular to the
dislocation line.
The geometry of an edge dislocation is relatively easy to visualize when the
crystal has a simple cubic crystal structure. The atomic configuration around the
dislocation line is more complicated in real crystal structures, but it is not necessary to
deal with that complexity to understand the behavior of dislocations. Whenever we need to
consider the crystallography of the dislocation we shall assume that the crystal structure is
simple cubic. An edge dislocation in a simple cubic structure is drawn in Fig. 6 , which
shows both a two-dimensional view and a three-dimensional section along the dislocation
line. The dislocation can be created by making a cut in the crystal on the dashed plane
that terminates at the dislocation line, displacing the material above the cut plane to the
left of the dislocation by one lattice spacing, and allowing the atoms to re-bond across the
slip plane. This recipe recreates the simple cubic unit cell everywhere except on the
dislocation line itself (ignoring the small elastic distortion of the cells that border the
dislocation line). Hence the Burgers vector, b, of the dislocation that is drawn in the
figure is b = a[100], where a is a vector along the edge of the cubic unit cell.
FIG. 6 : An edge dislocation in a simple cubic structure. The dotted plane is the slip plane.
The process that creates the edge dislocation shown in Fig. 6 leaves one extra
vertical half-plane of atoms above the slip plane. This extra half-plane terminates at the
dislocation line, and is compressed there, as shown in the figure. The distortion at the
dislocation line is local. The simple cubic arrangement of atoms is essentially restored a
few atom spacings away from the dislocation line. The influence of the dislocation on
the atomic configuration rapidly decays into a small displacement that decreases in
magnitude with the inverse cube of the distance from the dislocation line. The local
distortion near the dislocation line (or dislocation core) is indicated in the figure.
In principle, the Burgers vector of a crystal dislocation can be any lattice vector;
for example, it is geometrically possible for an edge dislocation to be the termination of
any integral number of lattice planes. In reality, however, the Burgers vector is almost
invariably equal to the shortest lattice vector in the crystal. The reason is that the energy
per unit length of dislocation line, which is called the line energy, or, in a slightly
different context, the line tension of the dislocation, increases with the square of the
magnitude of b, |b|2. (While we shall not prove this, it is obvious from Fig. 6 that the
local distortion of the crystal would increase dramatically if two or more extra half-planes
terminated at the dislocation line.) Let the Burgers vector, b, be the vector sum of smaller
lattice vectors, b = b1 + b2. Unless b1 and b2 are perpendicular, |(b1+b2)|2 >
|b1|2 + |b2|2, and the dislocation can decrease its energy by splitting into two or more
dislocations that have smaller Burgers vectors.
 The Burgers circuit
While it is always possible to find the Burgers vector, b, of a dislocation by determining
the slip that would be required to make it, this is often inconvenient. A simpler
method uses a geometric construction known as the Burgers circuit.
To construct the Burgers circuit, choose a direction for the dilocation line and
draw a clockwise closed circuit in the perfect crystal by taking unit steps along the lattice
vectors. An example is drawn for a {100} plane in a simple cubic crystal in Fig.7 . If
the same circuit is drawn so that it encloses a dislocation, it fails to close. The vector
(from the starting position) that is required to complete the circuit is the Burgers vector,
b, of the dislocation, and measures the net displacement experienced by an imaginary
observer who completes a circuit around the dislocation that would be closed in a perfect
crystal.

FIG. 7: (a) Burgers circuit closes in a {100} plane of a cubic crystal, but fails to close by the
Burgers vector,(b) when the same circuit encloses an edge dislocation.
 Motion of an edge dislocation: glide climb and

The reason that dislocations control the plastic deformation of crystalline solids is that it is
relatively easy to move dislocations to produce shear deformation . It would be enormously
difficult to shear a crystal by forcing the glide of rigid planes of atoms over one another; one
would have to force the simultaneous reconfiguration of every crystal bond that crossed the
slip plane. The same result is more easily achieved by moving dislocations stepwise through
the crystal. Stepwise dislocation motion requires a much smaller force since each
elementary step can be accomplished by reconfiguring only the bonds that neighbor the
dislocation line. The stepwise motion of an edge dislocation in a simple cubic crystal is
illustrated in Fig.8 . In order for the dislocation to move one lattice spacing to the right it is
only necessary to break the bond indicated by the long dash in fig. 8a and establish the bond
indicated by the short dash. The new configuration is shown in Fig. 8b. Of course one bond
must be broken for each plane through which the dislocation threads, so a significant force
is still required. But the force is small compared to that required to slip the upper part of the
crystal as a rigid body. If the dislocation moves through the crystal in a sequence of
individual steps like that shown in Fig. 8 it causes a net slip of the material above its plane
of motion by the Burgers vector, b, and hence causes a rigid displacement of the whole
upper part of the crystal.

FIG. 8 : Glide of an edge dislocation. Only a single bond must be broken per plane for each
increment of glide.

The type of motion that is illustrated in Fig. 8 is called dislocation glide, and is
relatively easy to accomplish. However, an edge dislocation cannot glide in an arbitrary
direction. It can only glide in a particular plane, the slip plane or glide plane, which contains
both the Burgers vector and the dislocation line.
FIG. 9: Climb of an edge dislocation. Movement up out of the plane requires the elimination
of atoms by vacancies. Movement down requires the addition of atoms.

When an edge dislocation moves out of its glide plane its motion is called climb. The climb
of a dislocation is difficult at ordinary temperatures since it requires that atoms be absorbed
on or liberated from the extra half-plane of atoms that defines the dislocation line. The
climb of an edge dislocation is illustrated in Fig. 9 . The mechanism is slightly different
depending on whether the dislocation moves up, which contracts them extra half-plane, or
down, which extends it. If the dislocation climbs up atoms must be liberated from the edge
of the extra half-plane. Since the number of atoms is conserved, this requires the absorption
of vacancies from the lattice. One vacancy is needed per plane the dislocation threads. If the
dislocation climbs down it must add atoms to the extra half-plane, and can only do this by
liberating one vacancy per plane into the matrix, as shown in Fig. 9b. Both processes are
difficult except at high temperature when, as we shall see, the equilibrium concentration of
vacancies is high and the exchange of vacancies and atoms is relatively easy. Because of the
difficulty of climb at ordinary temperatures the plastic deformation of real crystals tends to
occur through the motion of dislocations on well-defined planes that are the glide planes of
the active dislocations. Under a microscope one can often see discrete slip steps on the
surface of a crystal that has been deformed. These result from the glide of many
dislocations on closely spaced, parallel planes. At high temperature climb becomes possible
and the slip planes are less well-defined. When this happens the strength of the crystal (its
resistance to plastic deformation) decreases dramatically. For this reason most solids are
relatively soft at high temperature.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

we would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to our teacher MR. SHATRUGAN
KUMAR SETHY as well as our HOD ER. ADIRAJ BEHERA who gave us the golden opportunity
to do this wonderful project on the topic EDGE DISLOCATION , which also helped us in doing
a lot of Research and we came to know about so many new things we are really thankful to
them.
Secondly we would also like to thank our parents and friends who helped me a lot in
finalizing this project within the limited time frame.
PREFACE
This project report has been prepared as a part of our SKILL PROJECT. The report is prepared
with the view to include all the detail regarding the project we carried out.

This project report contain detail specification of our project EDGE DISLOCATION which are
thoroughly studied and extiensively researched.

The project is sincere attempt to study and understand the overall concept of edge
dislocation and its different aspect.

TEAM MEMBER :
SUMIT KUMAR JHA
AVINASH SAHOO
PRATYUSH JENA
RIYALIN LAKRA
MANOJ PRADHAN
SOUMYA RANJAN LENKA
 GOVERNMENT COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING ,
KEONJHAR

DEPARTMENT OF METALLURGY AND MATERIAL