Abnormal Strain Rate Sensitivity Driven by a Unit Dislocation-Obstacle Interaction in bcc Fe

The interaction between an edge dislocation and a sessile vacancy cluster in bcc Fe is investigated over a wide range of strain rates from 10(8) down to 10(3) s(-1), which is enabled by employing an energy landscape-based atomistic modeling algorithm. It is observed that, at low strain rates regime less than 10(5) s(-1), such interaction leads to a surprising negative strain rate sensitivity behavior because of the different intermediate microstructures emerged under the complex interplays between thermal activation and applied strain rate. Implications of our findings regarding the previously established global diffusion model are also discussed.