Deformation at the limit of elastic stability

We describe mechanical behavior in a defect-free world and find many famili ar features. Among them: (1) in a world governed by elastic stability, the common bce metals would exhibit "pencil glide" in <1 1 1 > and would cleave on {1 0 0}. They would be "conditionally brittle" at low temperature; (2) the common fee metals would glide on {1 1 1} and would not cleave under sim ple tensile loads. They would be ductile at low temperature; (3) the minimu m values of the nanohardness of simple metals would be very nearly what the y are. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.