An adaptive concurrent multiscale method for the dynamic simulation of dislocations

A continuum‐atomistic adaptive multiscale method is developed for the simulation of the dynamics of dislocations. Two key features of the method are (i) methods for both refining and coarsening the model, where coarsening refers to a continuum to atomistic transition and refinement to the opposite and (ii) error criteria for refining and coarsening. In coarsening of edge dislocation solutions, it is crucial to capture the discontinuities across the glide plane, which is accomplished here by the extended finite element method. Error criteria are developed in terms of energies so that the atomistic model tends to follow the core, where continuum models are generally quite inaccurate. The method is applied to two‐dimensional problems involving dislocations emitted from a void and from a crack tip. The results show good agreement with other multiscale methods and result in a large savings in computational effort.