Partial dislocations

Partial dislocations are a decomposed form of dislocations that occur within a material. An extended dislocation is a dislocation that has dissociated into partial dislocations. The vector sum of the Burgers vectors of the partial dislocations is the Burgers vector of the extended dislocation. Partial dislocations are a decomposed form of dislocations that occur within a material. An extended dislocation is a dislocation that has dissociated into partial dislocations. The vector sum of the Burgers vectors of the partial dislocations is the Burgers vector of the extended dislocation. A dislocation will decompose into partial dislocations if the energy state of the sum of the partials is less than the energy state of the original dislocation. This is summarized by Frank's Energy Criterion: Shockley partial dislocations generally refer to a pair of dislocations which can lead to the presence of stacking faults. This pair of partial dislocations can enable dislocation motion by allowing an alternate path for atomic motion.