Related papers: Mechanisms of near-surface structural evolution in…
Molecular dynamics simulations were used to quantify mechanically-induced structural evolution in nanocrystalline Al with an average grain size of 5 nm. A polycrystalline sample was cyclically strained at different temperatures, while a…
Nanocrystalline metals are promising materials for wear-resistant applications due to their superior strength and hardness, but prior work has shown that cyclic loading can lead to coarsening. In this study, scratch wear tests were carried…
Nanocrystalline materials have been proposed for use in future fusion reactors due to their high grain boundary density that may act as a sink for irradiation-induced defects. We use molecular dynamics to model collision cascades in…
A correlation is established between the macro-scale friction regimes of metals and a transition between two dominant atomistic mechanisms of deformation. Metals tend to exhibit bi-stable friction behavior -- low and converging or high and…
Vacuum breakdowns in particle accelerators and other devices operating at high electric fields is a common problem in the operation of these devices. It has been proposed that the onset of vacuum breakdowns is associated with appearance of…
Nanocrystalline metals, i.e. metals with grain sizes from 5 to 50 nm, display technologically interesting properties, such as dramatically increased hardness, increasing with decreasing grain size. Due to the small grain size, direct…
Solid solution effects on the strength of the finest nanocrystalline grain sizes are studied with molecular dynamics simulations of different Cu-based alloys. We find evidence of both solid solution strengthening and softening, with trends…
Coarsening of bicontinuous microstructures is observed in a variety of systems, such as nanoporous metals and mixtures that have undergone spinodal decomposition. To better understand the morphological evolution of these structures during…
Nanocrystalline metals, i.e. metals in which the grain size is in the nanometer range, have a range of technologically interesting properties including increased hardness and yield strength. We present atomic-scale simulations of the…
Nanocrystalline metals with average grain sizes of only a few nanometers have recently been observed to fail through the formation of shear bands. Here, we investigate this phenomenon in nanocrystalline Ni which has had its grain structure…
Surface roughness emerges naturally during mechanical removal of material, fracture, chemical deposition, plastic deformation, indentation, and other processes. Here, we use continuum simulations to show how roughness which is neither…
We discuss how simulations of mechanical properties of materials require descriptions at many different length scales --- from the nanoscale where an atomic description is appropriate, through a mesoscale where dislocation based…
A new approach for characterizing the dislocation microstructure obtained from atomistic simulations is introduced, which relies on converting properties of discrete lines to continuous data. This data is represented by a number of density…
The sliding motion of objects is typically governed by their friction with the underlying surface. Compared to translational friction, however, rotational friction has received much less attention. Here, we experimentally and theoretically…
Surface roughness is a key factor when it comes to friction and wear, as well as to other physical properties. These phenomena are controlled by mechanisms acting at small scales, in which the topography of apparently-flat surfaces is…
Grain rotation and grain boundary (GB) sliding are two important mechanisms for grain coarsening and plastic deformation in nanocrystalline materials. They are in general coupled with GB migration and the resulting dynamics, driven by…
Tribological properties of materials play an important role in engineering applications. Up to now, a number of experimental studies have identified correlations between tribological parameters and the mechanical response. Using molecular…
We used nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to study the shear deformation of metallic composites composed of alternating layers of Cu and Au. Our simulations reveal the formation of "vortices" or "swirls" if the bimaterial…
The kinetics of dislocations is studied with computer simulation at loadings of different intensity. It is established that the dislocations have a few different structural states. The dislocations "with the micropore" play important role…
The grain boundary-mediated mechanisms that control plastic deformation of nanocrystalline metals should cause evolution of the grain boundary network, since they directly alter misorientation relationships between crystals. Unfortunately,…