Atomistic Investigation of Thermal Effect on the Shear Deformation of Single Crystal Copper

Abstract

The thermal effect has pronounced influence on deformation behavior of materials at nanoscale due to small length scale. In current paper, shear deformation of single crystal copper is simulated by molecular dynamics simulation, and special attention is paid to the thermal effect on the deformation behavior of material and mechanical response. The result shows that the plastic deformation of material during shear deformation is dominated by dislocation activities. Both the yield strength and shear strength have strong dependence on temperature due to thermal effect.