Temperature and Strain Rate Dependent Mechanical Properties of a Square Nickel Plate with Different Shaped Central Cracks: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Abstract

In our present study, under uniaxial tension, atomistic simulations were conducted to explore the crack propagation mechanism of Square Nickel Plate (SNP) for two distinct shaped cracks (Rectangular and Circular) at center separately. Here, for modeling the inter-atomic potential between atoms, Embedded Atom Model (EAM) was used. In case of both types, the crack size was varied keeping a constant strain rate of 2×109s-1and temperature of 300 k for investigation of the effects of crack geometry and size on the behavior of crack propagation. Along with the size and geometry of crack, the effects of different strain rates (1×109, 2×109and 4×109s-1) and temperatures (300 K, 600 K and 900 k) were also studied. From the simulations, the declination nature of peak stress can be deduced for both of the geometries by increasing the crack size. It can also be concluded that when crack area was same, the peak stresses were higher in SNP with Circular crack than with the SNP with Rectangular one. Besides, increasing and decreasing nature of peak stress were found for two genres with the increment of strain rate and temperature separately.