3-D simulation of dislocation dynamics

Plastic flow results from the motion and interactions of dislocations at the mesoscopic scale. This is illustrated here by the tensile deformation of an FCC single crystal (Cu) along a [100] stress axis. The linear dimension of the elementary cell is 15 micrometers and the imposed strain rate is 50 per second. The plastic strain reached at the end of this sequence is 0.1 percent.