The thermodynamic dislocation theory presented in previous papers is used here to describe shear-banding instabilities. Central ingredients of the theory are a thermodynamically defined effective configurational temperature and a formula for the plastic strain rate determined by thermally activated depinning of entangled dislocations. This plastic strain rate is extremely sensitive to variations of the stress and the ordinary temperature. As a result of this sensitivity, the system undergoes rapid shear banding instabilities when ordinary thermal relaxation is slow. It also undergoes rapid changes from elastic to plastic behaviors at yielding transitions.

The statistical-thermodynamic dislocation theory developed in previous papers is used here in an analysis of yielding transitions and grain-size effects in polycrystalline solids. Calculations are based on the 1995 experimental results of Meyers, Andrade, and Chokshi [Metall. Mater. Trans. A 26, 2881 (1995)MMTAEB1073-562310.1007/BF02669646] for polycrystalline copper under strain-hardening conditions. The main assertion is that the well-known Hall-Petch effects are caused by enhanced strengths of dislocation sources at the edges of grains instead of the commonly assumed resistance to dislocation flow across grain boundaries. The theory describes rapid transitions between elastic and plastic deformation at yield points; thus it can be used to predict grain-size dependence of both yield stresses and flow stresses.

This paper describes an attempt to construct a first-principles theory of the fracture toughness of crystalline solids. It is based on the thermodynamic dislocation theory (TDT), which starts with the assertion that dislocations in solids must obey the second law of thermodynamics. A second starting assumption is that fracture is initiated when the tip of a notch is driven to undergo a dynamic shape instability. The results of this analysis are developed in comparison with measurements by Gumbsch and colleagues of the notch toughness of both predeformed and non-predeformed tungsten crystals. The theory includes a simple ad hoc conjecture regarding tip dynamics at small dislocation densities. Nevertheless, its predictions agree quantitatively with the experimental data, including both brittle and ductile fracture, over a wide range of temperatures, loading rates, and initial conditions.

This key-issues review is a plea for a new focus on simpler and more realistic models of glass-forming fluids. It seems to me that we have too often been led astray by sophisticated mathematical models that beautifully capture some of the most intriguing features of glassy behavior, but are too unrealistic to provide bases for predictive theories. As illustrations of what I mean, the first part of this article is devoted to brief summaries of imaginative, sensible, but disparate and often contradictory ideas for solving glass problems. Almost all of these ideas remain alive today, with their own enthusiastic advocates. I then describe numerical simulations, mostly by H Tanaka and coworkers, in which it appears that very simple, polydisperse systems of hard disks and spheres develop long range, Ising-like, bond-orientational order as they approach glass transitions. Finally, I summarize my recent proposal that topologically ordered clusters of particles, in disordered environments, tend to become aligned with each other as if they were two-state systems, and thus produce the observed Ising-like behavior. Neither Tanaka's results nor my proposed interpretation of them fit comfortably within any of the currently popular glass theories.

The thermodynamic theory of dislocation-enabled plasticity is based on two unconventional hypotheses. The first of these is that a system of dislocations, driven by external forces and irreversibly exchanging heat with its environment, must be characterized by a thermodynamically defined effective temperature that is not the same as the ordinary temperature. The second hypothesis is that the overwhelmingly dominant mechanism controlling plastic deformation is thermally activated depinning of entangled pairs of dislocations. This paper consists of a systematic reformulation of this theory followed by examples of its use in analyses of experimentally observed phenomena including strain hardening, grain-size (Hall-Petch) effects, yielding transitions, and adiabatic shear banding.

Theoretical physics and the institutions that support it have changed greatly during my career. In this article, I recount some of my most memorable experiences as a physicist, first as a graduate student with Rudolf Peierls at the University of Birmingham in England and later as a colleague of Walter Kohn at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California. I use this account to illustrate some of the changes that have occurred in my field and also as a rationale for asserting that theoretical physics has an increasingly vital role to play in modern science.

This article is written in memory of Pierre Hohenberg with appreciation for his deep commitment to the basic principles of theoretical physics. I summarize recent developments in the theory of dislocation-enabled deformation of crystalline solids. This topic is especially appropriate for the Journal of Statistical Physics because materials scientists, for decades, have asserted that statistical thermodynamics is not applicable to dislocations. By use of simple, first-principles analyses and comparisons with experimental data, I argue that these people have been wrong, and that this field should now be revitalized because of its wide-ranging intellectual and technological importance.

This paper starts with a systematic rederivation of the statistical thermodynamic equations of motion for dislocation-mediated plasticity proposed in 2010 by Langer, Bouchbinder, and Lookman [Acta Mat. 58, 3718 (2010)ACMAFD1359-645410.1016/j.actamat.2010.03.009]. It then uses that theory to explain the anomalous rate-hardening behavior reported in 1988 by Follansbee and Kocks and to explore the relation between hardening rate and grain size reported in 1995 by Meyers et al. A central theme is the need for physics-based, nonequilibrium analyses in developing predictive theories of the strength of polycrystalline materials.

Yielding transitions in athermal amorphous materials undergoing steady-state shear flow resemble critical phenomena. Historically, they have been described by the Herschel-Bulkley rheological formula, which implies singular behaviors at yield points. In this paper, I examine this class of phenomena using an elementary version of the thermodynamic shear-transformation-zone (STZ) theory, focusing on the role of the effective disorder temperature, and paying special attention to scaling and dimensional arguments. I find a wide variety of Herschel-Bulkley-like rheologies but, for fundamental reasons not specific to the STZ theory, conclude that the yielding transition is not truly critical. In particular, for realistic many-body models with short-range interactions, there is a correlation length that grows rapidly but ultimately saturates near the yield point.

Recent computational and laboratory experiments have shown that brittle-ductile transitions in the notch toughnesses of metallic glasses such as Vitreloy 1 are strongly sensitive to the initial effective disorder (or "fictive") temperature. Glasses with lower effective temperatures are weak and brittle; those with higher effective temperatures are strong and ductile. The analysis of this phenomenon presented here examines the onset of fracture at the tip of a notch as predicted by the shear-transformation-zone theory of spatially varying plastic deformation. The central ingredient of this analysis is an approximation for the dynamics of the plastic zone formed by stress concentration at the notch tip. This zone first shields the tip but then, with increasing stress, expands suddenly, producing a discontinuous transition between brittle and ductile failure in satisfactory agreement with the numerical and experimental observations.