Effect of Interfaces in the Work Hardening of Nanoscale Multilayer Metallic Composites During Nanoindentation: A Molecular Dynamics Investigation

Abstract

To study the strain hardening in nanoscale multilayer metallic (NMM) composites, atomistic simulations of nanoindentation are performed on CuNi, CuNb, and CuNiNb multilayers. The load-depth data were converted to hardness-strain data that were then modeled using power law. The plastic deformation of the multilayers is closely examined. It is found that the strain hardening in the incoherent CuNb and NiNb interfaces is stronger than the coherent CuNi interface. The hardening parameters are discovered to be closely related to the density of the dislocations in the incoherent interfaces, which in turn is found to have power law dependence on two length scales: indentation depth and layer thickness. Based on these results, a constitutive law for extracting strain hardening in NMM from nanoindentation data is developed.