Atomistic simulation of rolling contact fatigue behavior of a face‐centered cubic material (nickel)

Abstract

The atomic‐level fundamental understanding of the rolling contact fatigue (RCF) mechanism using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is yet to be understood more clearly. In this paper, the atomistic behavior of the single‐crystal Ni is studied under dynamic rolling contact loading with the help of MD simulations at varying temperatures of the specimen. The deformed material is investigated using atomic strain analyses to evaluate the shear, volumetric strain distribution, and von Mises stress. Furthermore, dislocation and stacking–fault analyses are done to determine the deformation mechanism of the material with the oscillation cycles. Simulation studies infer that dislocation defects tend to increase with the temperature of the specimen logarithmically. The deformation majorly results in partial dislocations, indicating low stacking fault (SF) energy. The present work opens up a new field of study to understand the RCF mechanisms, which can provide the foundational work to understand other face‐centered cubic (FCC) materials.