Stress-induced solid-state amorphization of nanocrystalline Ni and NiZr investigated by atomistic simulations

M Meraj and C Deng and S Pal, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, 123, 044306 (2018).

DOI: 10.1063/1.5012960

In this study, the feasibility of stress induced solid-state amorphization (SSA) of nanocrystalline (NC) Ni and NiZr alloys having similar to 10 nm grain size has been investigated under constant tensile load (uniaxial and triaxial) via molecular dynamics simulations. In order to track the structural evaluation in both NC Ni and NiZr alloys during the SSA process, various types of analysis have been used, including simulated X-ray diffraction, centro-symmetry parameter, Voronoi cluster, common neighbor analysis, and radial distribution function. It is found that SSA in both NC Ni and NiZr alloys can only be achieved under triaxial loading conditions, and the hydrostatic tensile stress required for SSA is significantly lower when at. % Zr is increased in the NC NiZr alloy. Specifically, SSA in NC Ni and Ni-5 at. % Zr alloy was observed only when the temperature and hydrostatic tensile stress reached 800K and 6 GPa, while SSA could occur in NC Ni-10 at. % Zr alloy under just 2 GPa of hydrostatic tensile stress at 300 K. Published by AIP Publishing.

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