Atomistic simulation of the effect of porosity on shock response of nanoporous gold

CD Wu and GW Hong, JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR MODELING, 29, 173 (2023).

DOI: 10.1007/s00894-023-05581-w

ContextNanoporous metals (NPMs) have a three-dimensional bicontinuous porous network structure that consists of interconnected nanoligaments. NPMs have the potential to effectively attenuate and dissipate the effects of impacts and blasts. Previous studies do not provide data on the possible effects of porosity at the nanoscale.MethodsMolecular dynamics simulations based on the embedded-atom method potential were performed using the open-source code LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator).ResultsNanoporous gold (NPG) absorbs shock energy first through the elastic-plastic deformation of ligaments and then through the collapse of ligaments. After the shock loading is relaxed, NPG with lower porosity has a higher amount of springback, and new voids tend to nucleate and grow at collapsed ligaments where the packing is looser. NPG with higher porosity has a better ability to resist the propagation of a shock wave and is subjected to a smaller stress effect.

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