Assessment of hardening due to dislocation loops in bcc iron: Overview and analysis of atomistic simulations for edge dislocations

Upon irradiation, iron based steels used for nuclear applications contain dislocation loops of both < 100 > and 1/2 < 111 > type. Both types of loops are known to contribute to the radiation hardening and embrittlement of steels. In the literature many molecular dynamics works studying the interaction of dislocations with dislocation loops are available. Recently, based on such studies, a thermo-mechanical model to threat the dislocation - dislocation loop (DL) interaction within a discrete dislocation dynamics framework was developed for 1/2 < 111 > loops. In this work, we make a literature review of the dislocation - DL interaction in bcc iron. We also perform molecular dynamics simulations to derive the stressenergy function for < 100 > loops. As a result we deliver the function of the activation energy versus activation stress for < 100 > loops that can be applied in a discrete dislocation dynamics framework. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.