Crack Length Effect on the Fracture Behavior of Single-Crystals and Bi-Crystals of Aluminum

Abstract

Molecular dynamics simulations of cracked nanocrystals of aluminum were performed in order to investigate the crack length and grain boundary effects. Atomistic models of single-crystals and bi-crystals were built considering 11 different crack lengths. Novel approaches based on fracture mechanics concepts were proposed to predict the crack length effect on single-crystals and bi-crystals. The results showed that the effect of the grain boundary on the fracture resistance was beneficial increasing the fracture toughness almost four times for bi-crystals.

Keywords

• fracture toughness
• crack length effect
• grain boundary
• bi-crystals
• single-crystals
• molecular dynamics simulations