Thermodynamic variational approach for climb of an edge dislocation

ABSTRACTA general thermodynamic variational approach is applied to study the force on an edge dislocation, which drives the dislocation to climb. Our attention is focused on the physical mechanism responsible for dislocation climb. A dislocation in a material element climbs as a result of vacancies diffusing into or out from the dislocation core, with the dislocation acting as a source or a sink for vacancy diffusion in the material element. The basic governing equations for dislocation climb and the climb forces on the dislocation are obtained naturally as a result of the present thermodynamic variational approach.