The role of interfaces on mechanical property and wear behavior of amorphous/amorphous nanomultilayers

Abstract

The tribological performance of CuTa/CuTa amorphous/amorphous nanomultilayers is investigated through molecular dynamics simulation in the present work. There is a significant effect of layer thickness and surface layer properties on scratching force, which results in reduced friction efficiency with small layer thickness for Cu80Ta20/Cu20Ta80 specimen, while the frictional performance between the two models of Cu80Ta20/Cu20Ta80 and Cu20Ta80/Cu80Ta20 exhibits the opposite at the critical layer thickness of 1.5 nm. It is found that the surface layer property controls plastic deformation for specimens with great layer thicknesses, while the interface plays a significant role in plastic deformation with small layer thickness. For the increase in scratching speed, the friction coefficient tends to gently decrease for a cutting depth of 1.0 nm, and it increases slightly for machining depths of 2.0 nm and 2.5 nm in relation to the thermal softening and strain rate hardening of the material.