Molecular dynamics simulation of nanoindentation of nanocrystalline Al/Ni multilayers

M Chamani and GH Farrahi and MR Movahhedy, COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE, 112, 175-184 (2016).

DOI: 10.1016/j.commatsci.2015.10.022

Molecular dynamics simulations are employed to investigate material properties of nanocrystalline aluminum and nanocrystalline Al/Ni multilayers at low temperature. For this purpose, both single crystal and nanocrystalline multilayers with different grain sizes and grain morphology are used as the substrate. The results of the simulations show that hardness and elastic modulus decrease with refinement of grain size in nanocrystalline aluminum and refinement of grain size and layer thickness in nanocrystalline Al/Ni multilayers, regardless of grain morphology. Furthermore, the angle between two adjacent grains, which is directly connected to the grain boundary thickness, has a great influence on the hardness and elastic modulus in nanocrystalline single layer and multilayers. It is shown that for grain size between 4.5 and 9.5 nm and layer thickness less than 8 nm, hardness of nanocrystalline Al/Ni multilayer is more affected by the layer thickness rather than the grain size. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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