An update: vacancies and stress!

Svoboda et al have published a paper in the 1st September 2005 issue of Philosophical Magazine Letters [vol. 85, no. 9, pp. 473-479(7)] on the vacancy mediated stress relaxation in misftting precipitates. Here is the abstract, in case you might be interested.

Vacancy diffusion is investigated as a mechanism for relaxation of the elastic strain energy caused by a misfitting inclusion. The kinetics of reduction of the total eigenstrain by the deposition or removal of an atom layer along the interface is derived. The time evolution, as well as an estimate for the characteristic time of the relaxation process, is presented. The relaxation times are compared with recent in situ measurements of stress relaxation times in aluminum with small lead-alloy inclusions after their solidification. Experimentally observed relaxation times and those theoretically predicted agree very well.

The experiments that are being referred to are the same ones that we discussed earlier.