Dislocations energy in deformed copper crystals

Measurements of the dislocation density and the energy released during recovery and recrystallization were used to calculate the specific dislocation energy in deformed copper crystals. The experimental data have been compared with the theoretical estimates on the energy stored by crystals with different spatial distributions of dislocations. The total energy of dislocations in deformed copper crystals has been shown to include the statistically averaged contributions from the short-range stresses due to the configurations similar to isolated dipoles or dispersed dislocations of opposite signs, as well as the long-range stresses from dislocation pile-ups or other dislocation groups.