Title: Atomistic studies of nanohardness size effects

Authors: Chih-Yang Chan, Yen-Yu Chen, Shu-Wei Chang, Chuin-Shan Chen

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan. ' Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan. ' Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan. ' Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan

Abstract: Atomistic simulations of nanoindentations with spherical and Berkovich indenters were carried out to study the effects of size on nanohardness. For spherical indenters with the radii ranging from 10 Å to 50 Å, it was found that nanohardness was inversely proportional to the indenter radius. For Berkovich indenters, it was found that nanohardness roughly followed a trend that was inversely proportional to the indentation depth. It was concluded that the indentation size effect at the atomistic scale might follow a trend similar to that observed at the micron and sub-micron scales.

Keywords: nanoindentation; nanohardness; ISE; indentation size effect; molecular dynamics; atomistic simulation; nanotechnology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTAMM.2011.041174

International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Multiscale Mechanics, 2011 Vol.2 No.1, pp.62 - 71

Published online: 11 Jul 2011 *

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