Modeling of Nano-Projectile Impact Tests in LAMMPS

Recent advances in microprojectile impact tests have opened a new route to explore the behaviors of nanomaterials under extreme dynamic conditions. The current experimental techniques are, however, unable to elucidate some of the complex atomistic mechanisms associated with the penetration process, which can only be realized through atomistic simulations. We conducted large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of ballistic impact tests on nanoscale multilayers to investigate the atomistic mechanisms associated with the penetration process. This project showed us that the preparation of properly equilibrated MD models can be challenging even for someone with a strong background in molecular modeling. Therefore, we shared some of our recent LAMMPS models with the research community (e.g., https://github.com/nuwan-d/md_impact_tests ).