Study of nanoindentation mechanical response of nanocrystalline structures using molecular dynamics simulations

Abstract

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed to study the nanoindentation onto three different crystal structures including the single crystalline, polycrystalline, and nanotwinned polycrystalline copper. To reveal the effects of crystal structure and twin-lamellae-thickness on the response of nanoindentation, we evaluate the evolution of crystalline structure, dislocation, strain, indentation force, temperature, hardness, and elastic recovery coefficient in the deformation zone. The results of MD simulations show that the hardness, elastic recovery ratio and temperature of those three nanocrystalline copper strongly depend on crystal structure and twin-lamellae-thickness. It is also revealed that as nanoindenter goes deeper, the extent of plastic zone becomes substantially larger. Initial dislocation always nucleates at the beneath of indenter, and the discrete drops of indentation force observed at certain indentation depths, indicates dislocation bursts during the indentation process. In particular, the twining and detwining are dominant over the dislocation nucleation in driving plasticity in nanotwinned polycrystalline during nanoindentation, which are in good agreement with the previous work. Furthermore, we find that plastic deformation has a strong dependence on crystal structure. The plastic deformation of the single crystalline copper relies on the generation, propagation and reaction of dislocations, that of the polycrystalline copper depends on the dislocation–grain boundary (GB) interactions, and that of the nanotwinned polycrystalline copper relies upon the dislocation–twin boundary (TB) interactions as well as twining/detwining. This work not only provides insights into the effects of crystal structure and two-lamellae-thickness on the mechanical properties of copper under nanoindentation, but also shed lights onto the guideline of understanding other FCC nanocrystalline materials.