Role of boron nitride nanosheet coatings on aluminum substrates during the nanoindentation from the atomic perspective

JM Li and YH Huang and YQ Zhou and FL Zhu, APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE, 608, 155126 (2023).

DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2022.155126

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed to study the repeated nanoindentation on aluminum (Al) substrate with different boron nitride nanosheet (BNNS) coating thickness. To reveal the strengthening mech- anism of coating, the hardness, surface morphology, atomic stress, atomic strain and phase transition are analyzed. The results show that the hardness of substrate increases with the coating thickness. It is also revealed that the pressure area of Al substrate increases with coating thickness. Because of the coating force, more atoms move along the loading direction, causing the substrate to slip more and more atoms to be severely strained. However, although severely deformed, some Al atoms still recover elastically after unloading. After multiple loadings, some elastic deformations are transformed into plastic deformations. The lattice structures are destroyed, possibly with amorphous atoms.

Return to Publications page