The Competition Between Deformation Twinning and Dislocation Slip in Deformed Face-Centered Cubic Metals

The competition between deformation twinning and dislocation slip underpins the evolution of mesoscale plasticity in face-centered cubic materials. While competition between these mechanisms is known to be related to the critical features of the generalized planar fault energy landscape, a physical theory that tracks competition over extended plasticity has yet to emerge. Here, we report a methodology to predict the mesoscale evolution of this competition in deformed crystals. Our approach implements kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to examine fault structure evolution in face-centered cubic metals using intrinsic material parameters as inputs. These results are leveraged to derive an analytical model for the evolution of the fault fraction, fault densities and partitioning of plastic strains among deformation mechanisms. In addition, we define a competition parameter that measures the tendencies for deformation twinning and dislocation slip. In contrast to previous ‘twinnability’ parameters, our derivation considers deformation history when examining mechanism competition. This contribution therefore extends the reach of deformation twinning theory beyond incipient nucleation events. These products find direct applications in work hardening and crystal plasticity models, which have previously relied on phenomenological relations to predict the mesoscale evolution of deformation twin microstructures.