Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2011
In order to study the dislocation density evolution of body centered cubic (bcc) crystals at low temperature by dislocation dynamics (DD) simulations, we investigated carefully three different boundary conditions (BC) for DD, i.e., the quasi-free surface BC, the flux-balanced BC, and the periodic BC. The latter two BCs can account for the dislocation loss from the boundary of the finite simulation box. PBC can also eliminate the influence of surfaces and improve the line connectivity. We have found that the PBC provides a convenient and effective boundary condition for DD simulations and have applied it to the study of dislocation density evolution of bcc metals during stage 0 deformation at low temperature.