Thermo-electro-elastic fields accompanying plastic deformation

The thermo-electro-elastic coupled fields excited by an arbitrary dynamic dislocation ensemble in a piezoelectric medium are studied in a general statement on the basis of the developed 5D formalism. The found general relations are specified for the case when coupled fields are produced by a single straight dislocation moving at a constant speed U. The limiting behavior of derived expressions is analyzed at v -> 0. In particular, the static electro-elastic field of a straight dislocation in a piezoelectric is expressed in a compact form similar to the known Barnett-Swanger formula describing dislocation distortions in a purely elastic medium. It is shown that the thermal component of dislocation fields may be essential only for fast dislocations with the speed v of order of the sound velocity. The temperature distribution around the moving dislocation is also analytically studied in details for the case of non-piezoelectric elastic materials. It is shown that metals and ionic crystals manifest a qualitative difference in described thermal effects. The results of the developed theory are compared with the existing experimental data. It is shown that there is a quantitative agreement between them. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.