With a view towards utilization in macroscopic continuum models, an approximation to the root-mean-square of the driving force field on individual dislocations within a "representative volume element" is derived. The plastic flow field of individual dislocations is also similarly averaged. Even under strong simplifying assumptions, non-trivial results on the origin and nature of anisotropic macroscopic yielding, plastic spin, and the plastic flow rule (for single and polycrystalline bodies) are

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... obtained. A particular result is the explicit dependence of the plastic response of a material point of the averaged model on the presence of dislocations within it, an effect absent in conventional theories of plastic response (e.g. J 2 plasticity). Also noteworthy is the explicit geometric accounting of the indeterminacy of the slip-plane identity of the screw dislocation that appears to lead to some differences with conventional ideas.