An FFT based adaptive grid framework to represent non-singular dislocations

Abstract

Non-singular theories aim at regularizing the unrealistic stress singularity around a dislocation line predicted by elasticity by spreading the Burgers vector around the core. The use of these approaches in discrete dislocation models or field dislocation mechanics require very fine discretization around the dislocation lines. FFT solvers commonly used in these problems rely on a regular grid which enforces the use of very fine discretizations or very small domains. In this work, a methodology is proposed to solve the boundary value problems associated with dislocation modeling using FFT with an adaptive grid which is refined around dislocation cores. The framework introduces a regular domain to compute Fourier derivatives mapped to a physical domain with more points concentrated the areas of interest. The linear differential operators involved are obtained by the product of the Fourier derivatives in the regular space and the Jacobian of the map defining the transformation between computational and physical domains. The periodic boundary value problem involved is transformed in a linear system that can be efficiently solved using Krylov solvers. The method for adaptive FFT grids is fully general and can be applied to any other micromechanical problem. It is demonstrated that the method allows to use several grid points within the core region of 2D and 3D dislocations even using coarse discretizations, allowing to resolve the non-singular stress fields within this region and also strongly reducing the numerical noise. Moreover, the method allows to preserve the accuracy of the results in fine meshes by reducing the grid spacing up to four times.