Anisotropic Dislocation Line Energy and Crack Tip Dislocation Nucleation in αRDX

This work reports anisotropic and isotropic elastic properties of dislocations and cracks in the α-phase of the energetic molecular crystal hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-s-triazine (αRDX). The properties determined in this work can be used to determine probable slip systems in αRDX and the structure of dislocations. The procedures given in this work for determination of the anisotropic dislocation line energy and crack tip dislocation nucleation load factors follow those outlined by Knap (1). This work contains a summary of the anisotropic elastic solutions for infinite straight dislocations given by Barnett and Swanger (2) and Barnett and Asaro (3) and the isotropic and anisotropic dislocation nucleation models of Rice (4) and Sun and Beltz (5). The appendix contains the Matlab implementation of the algorithms given in the text.