Dissociation of dislocations into partials, which are not freely mobil
e on the plane of dissociation, is discussed in the framework of a mod
el where the frictional force can be described by a Peierls potential.
It has been shown that, when the metastable positions of dissociated
dislocations are not considered, the resulting energy of the stacking
fault connecting two partials may be underestimated.