Effect of dislocation core fields on discrete dislocation plasticity

Discrete dislocation plasticity is a modeling technique that treats plasticity as the collective motion of dislocations. The dislocations are described through their elastic Volterra fields, outside of a cylindrical core region, with a few Burgers vectors of diameter. The contribution of the core fields to the dislocation dynamics is neglected, because it is assumed that their range is too short to be of influence. The aim of this work is to assess the validity of this assumption. In recent ab-initio studies it has been demonstrated that the dislocation core fields are significant up to a distance of ten Burgers vector from the dislocation line. This is a longer range influence than expected and can give rise to changes in the evolving dislocation structure and in the overall response of a plastically deforming body. It is indeed experimentally observed that dislocations pile up against strong interfaces, and that the spacing between dislocations at the front of these pile-ups can be less than ten Burgers vectors. In this work, 2-D discrete dislocation plasticity simulations are performed to investigate the effect of core fields on edge dislocation interactions. The results of the simulations, which include core fields for the first time, show indeed that dislocations that are very closely spaced experience additional glide or climb due to core fields. The effect is however negligible when compared to glide and climb due to Volterra fields or due to the external load.