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A general, twisted and tilted, grain boundary in copper has been simulated using the adaptive kinetic Monte Carlo method to study the atomistic structure of the non-crystalline region and the mechanism of annealing events that occur at low temperature. The simulated time interval spanned 67 μs at 135 K. Similar final configurations were obtained starting from different initial structures: (i) by bringing the two grains into contact without any intermediate layer, and (ii) by inserting an amorphous region between the grains. The results obtained were analyzed with a radial distribution function and a common neighbor analysis. Annealing events leading to lowering of the energy typically involved concerted displacement of several atoms—even as many as 10 atoms displaced by more than half an Ångström. Increased local icosahedral ordering is observed in the boundary layer, but local HCP coordination was also observed. In the final low-energy configurations, the thickness of the region separating the crystalline grains corresponds to just one atomic layer, in good agreement with reported experimental observations. The simulated system consists of 1307 atoms and atomic interactions were described using effective medium theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using molecular dynamics simulations we investigate the plastic deformation of nanocrystalline molybdenum with a grain size of 12 nm at high strain rates. The simulations are performed with an interatomic potential which is obtained through matching of atomic forces to a database generated with density-functional calculations. The simulations show the plastic deformation to involve both grain boundary processes and dislocation migration which in some cases lead to twin boundary formation. A large component of the strain is accommodated through the formation of cracks in the grain boundaries. This behavior is very different from what has been seen earlier in simulations of fcc metals where grain boundary sliding is the dominant mechanism for very small grain sizes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We have applied an atomistic simulation methodology based on molecular dynamics to study grain boundary migration in crystalline materials, driven by the excess energy of dislocation arrangements. This method is used to simulate recrystallization in metals. The simulations reveal that the migration process is not uniform as assumed in many recrystallization models, but that the grain boundaries migrate in an irregular fashion and exhibit a strong dependence on the local presence of dislocations, which can distort the local migration process significantly. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]