Heterogeneous deformation resulting from stress gradients in calcite single crystals

The stress gradient calculated from an isotropic elastic approximation does not directly reflect the distribution of permanent deformation in a crystal of the same shape under the same conditions. However, with additional crystallographic constraints, it serves to predict locations where twinning and slip are first activated in a stressed crystal. In this study, thick-walled hollow cylinders were cored from single calcite crystals parallel to 0001 and . One cylinder of each orientation was loaded at room temperature under one of two conditions: internal pressure (P _p )=60 MPa, external pressure (P _c )=100 MPa, or P _p = 20 MPa, P _c = 50 MPa. These conditions would produce a radial stress gradient in an isotropic elastic cylinder. Mechanical twins in the deformed calcite samples had a hexagonal distribution in the 0001 oriented cylinder and an orthorhombic distribution in the oriented cylinder.Zones of dense r-slip dislocations were observed in the cylinder. Calculated resolved shear stresses for r-slip in either cylinder remained far below the published critical resolved shear stress (c.r.s.s.) value. Calculated contributions from twinning back stress and anisotropy do not account for the difference between the resolved shear stress and the c.r.s.s. These results underscore the necessity of considering dislocation activiation stresses rather than c.r.s.s. in quantitative analyses of heterogeneous of deformation in single crystals.