The influence of dislocation climb on the mechanical behavior of polycrystals and grain size effect at elevated temperature

• The grain size effect at elevated temperature was studied by 2D-DDD.
• Dislocation climb influences the grain size effect by relaxing the pile-ups.
• The Hall–Petch effect is weakened by dislocation climb.

The mechanical behavior of a polycrystalline aluminum in tension was modeled using a climb-assisted discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) technique. Special focus was on how dislocation climb influences the flow stress of the polycrystalline aluminum with regard to selected grain sizes at elevated temperature. A periodical representative cell (PRC) consisting of given number of grains was used in the simulations. Results showed that, at the high temperature considered, dislocation climb plays an important role in defining the mechanical behavior of the polycrystalline crystal. Specifically, dislocation climb decreases significantly the flow stress and hardening rate while increases the dislocation density by relieving the dislocation pile-ups against the grain boundaries (GBs). In addition, the grain size effect on the yield stress of polycrystalline aluminum is significantly weakened by dislocation climb, especially when the grain size falls in the range of submicron. Another interesting result is that, at high temperature, when both dislocation climb and glide are considered, the grain size effect seems to be insignificant with regard to the applied strain rate, although the strength of material increases with enhanced loading rate.