Triaxial tension-induced damage behavior of nanocrystalline NiTi alloy and its dependence on grain size

摘要

This study focused on the effect of grain size(GS)on dynamic damage performance of nano-crystalline nickel titanium(NC NiTi)alloy.Molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to triaxially expand it at a high strain rate(4×10~9 s^(-1)),while the temperature and initial pressure remained 300 K and 0 bar,respectively.It was discovered that the superelastic NiTi alloy exhibited the similar damage response as ductile metallic materials,which was vividly characterized by void nucleation,growth,and coalescence.The stress-strain curves demonstrated that the void nucleations always occurred near the start of the strain softening region at various grain sizes.Interestingly,it was discovered that the void evolution was characteristic of an almost double-linear behavior,and the piecewise linearity became more prominent for the void volume fraction increase at larger grain size.More importantly,the fracture behavior was found to be strongly dependent upon the grain size in the NC NiTi alloy.For small grain size,the existing voids propagated along the grain boundaries and in the grains,leading to intergranular and transgranular fracture.Contrarily,the intergranular-dominated fracture was responsible for the void propagation in the large grain.In addition,the starting time,ending time,and threshold of void nucleation were found to be weak sensitivity to GS,and a reverse effect was appropriate to the void growth.The results highlighted that as the GS increased,more complete stress relaxation and shorter duration time were produced,leading to larger void volume fraction and faster growth rate.