Review of Non-Classical Features of Deformation Twinning in hcp Metals and Their Description by Disconnection Mechanisms

The study of deformation twinning has long history. However new, sometimes surprising, findings have shown that the phenomenon of deformation twinning still is not completely understood. During recent years, some debates are taking place in the scientific literature concerning deformation twinning mechanisms in metals with hcp structure. These debates deal with the importance of special twin boundary dislocations named disconnections, growth and nucleation of twins, non-Schmid behavior of twinning, difference of deformation produced by twins from simple shear. They invoked new propositions for atomistic mechanisms of deformation twinning. The purpose of this review is to compare the classical theories of interfacial defects with the new findings and prove that many of these findings can be understood in terms of these well-established theories. The main attention is paid to summarizing the explanations of different phenomena in terms of disconnection mechanisms in order to show that there is no contradiction between these mechanisms and the new findings.