Articles you may be interested inEffect of microstructure anisotropy on the deformation of MAX polycrystals studied by in-situ compression combined with neutron diffraction Appl. Phys. Lett.

Molecular-dynamics simulation can give atomistic information on the processes occurring in nanoindentation experiments. In particular, the nucleation of dislocation loops, their growth, interaction and motion can be studied. We investigate how realistic the interatomic potentials underlying the simulations have to be in order to describe these complex processes. Specifically we investigate nanoindentation into a Cu single crystal. We compare simulations based on a realistic many-body interaction potential of the embedded-atom-method type with two simple pair potentials, a Lennard-Jones and a Morse potential. We find that qualitatively many aspects of nanoindentation are fairly well reproduced by the simple pair potentials: elastic regime, critical stress and indentation depth for yielding, dependence on the crystal orientation, and even the level of the hardness. The quantitative deficits of the pair potential predictions can be traced back (i) to the fact that the pair potentials are unable in principle to model the elastic anisotropy of cubic crystals; (ii) as the major drawback of pair potentials we identify the gross underestimation of the stable stacking fault energy. As a consequence these potentials predict the formation of too large dislocation loops, the too rapid expansion of partials, too little cross slip and in consequence a severe overestimation of work hardening.

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We investigate the dependence of the hardness of materials on their elastic stiffness. This is possible by constructing a series of model potentials of the Morse type; starting on modelling natural Cu, the model potential exhibit an increased elastic modulus, while keeping all other potential parameters (lattice constant, bond energy) unchanged. Using molecular-dynamics simulation, we perform nanoindentation experiments on these model crystals. We find that the crystal hardness scales with the elastic stiffness. Also the load drop, which is experienced when plasticity sets in, increases in proportion to the elastic stiffness, while the yield point, i.e., the indentation at which plasticity sets in, is independent of the elastic stiffness.

Atomistic simulation data on crater formation due to the hypervelocity impact of nanoprojectiles of up to 55 nm diameter and with targets containing up to 1.1×10(10) atoms are compared to available experimental data on μm-, mm-, and cm-sized projectiles. We show that previous scaling laws do not hold in the nanoregime and outline the reasons: within our simulations we observe that the cratering mechanism changes, going from the smallest to the largest simulated scales, from an evaporative regime to a regime where melt and plastic flow dominate, as is expected in larger microscale experiments. The importance of the strain-rate dependence of strength and of dislocation production and motion are discussed.