Atomistic modelling of fatigue crack growth and dislocation structuring in FCC crystals

Fatigue damage in face-centred cubic crystals by dislocation substructuring and crack growth was computationally simulated at the atomic scale. Single-crystal copper specimens with approximately 200 000 atoms and an initial crack were subjected to fatigue loading with a constant strain amplitude of εmax=0.01 and a load ratio of R=εmin/εmax=0.75. Cyclic plastic deformation around the crack tip is the main influencing factor for the propagation mechanisms of nanocracks. The main crack-propagation mechanisms occurred either by void nucleation in the high-density region near the crack tip or by fatigue cleavage of the atomic bonds in the crack plane. Fatigue crack growth at grain boundaries was also studied. For high misorientation angle grain boundaries, the crack path deviated while moving from one grain to another. For low crystal misorientations, the crack did not experience any significant out-of-plane deviation. For a large crystal misorientation, voids were observed to nucleate at grain boundaries in front of the crack tip and link back with the main crack. During fatigue loading, dislocation substructures were observed to develop throughout the atomic lattices. Fatigue crack growth rates for nanocracks were computed and compared with growth rates published in the literature for microstructurally small cracks (micron range) and long cracks (millimetre range). The computed growth rates for nanocracks were comparable with those for small cracks at the same stress intensity ranges and they propagated below the threshold for long cracks.

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