Molecular Dynamic Simulation of High Speed Deformation Effect on Microstructure Change in Thermal Heated Metals

Abstract

In the present paper computer simulation of high-speed deformation (shock wave propagation) by molecular dynamic method is performed in thin copper sample, having the form of rectangular parallelepiped (10 a ‐ 10 a ‐ 20 a , where a is the lattice constant) with 8000 atoms. On the surfaces Z 0 =0 and Z max =20 a the mirror boundary conditions with rigid walls and the periodic boundary conditions along X and Y directions corresponding to short sides of deformed crystal are used, which allows to investigate the reflection of shock wave from the surfaces in Z direction. The changes of microstructure have been investigated up to 12 ps. The numerical calculations of microstructure changes have been performed here taking into account the effect of thermal heating of crystal lattice before shock wave front. The numerical results show that comparing with the propagation of shock waves under room temperature in thermal heated structure additional displaced atoms (vacancies and interstitials) are produced. The obtained results show that the production of point defects during high-speed deformation is determined by the thermal softening of microstructure and generation rate of point defects very strong increases with an increasing of high speed deformation rate. The peculiarities of microstructure changes in deformed copper are analyzed here at the different initial temperatures and various high-speed deformations (average ion velocities behind shock wave).