A molecular dynamics study of the effect of voids on the deformation behavior of nanocrystalline copper

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the effect of preexisting ellipsoidal voids on the tensile deformation behavior in nanocrystalline copper. No crack propagation is observed regardless of the orientation of the voids with respect to the tensile direction. However it is found that the voids may assist the shear plane formation via (1) emitting dislocations from the void tips, (2) relieving triple-junction confinement, and (3) catalyzing grain splitting. Copyright (c) 2007 C. Zheng and Y.-W. Zhang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.