Dislocation multiplication by cross-slip and glissile reaction in a dislocation based continuum formulation of crystal plasticity

Modeling dislocation multiplication due to interaction and reactions on a mesoscopic scale is an important task for the physically meaningful description of stage II hardening in face centered cubic crystalline materials. In recent Discrete Dislocation Dynamics simulations it is observed that dislocation multiplication is exclusively the result of mechanisms, which involve dislocation reactions between different slip systems. These findings contradict multiplication models in dislocation based continuum theories, in which density increase is related to plastic slip on the same slip system. An application of these models for the density evolution on individual slip systems results in self-replication of dislocation density. We introduce a formulation of dislocation multiplication in a dislocation based continuum formulation of plasticity derived from a mechanism-based homogenization of cross-slip and glissile reactions in three-dimensional face-centered cubic systems. As a key feature, the presented model includes the generation of dislocations based on an interplay of dislocation density on different slip systems. This particularly includes slip systems with vanishing shear stress. The results show, that the proposed dislocation multiplication formulation allows for a physically meaningful microstructural evolution without self-replication of dislocations density. The results are discussed in comparison to discrete dislocation dynamics simulations exposing the coupling of different slip systems as the central characteristic for the increase of dislocation density on active and inactive slip systems. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.